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THE 
BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 


Dr.  g!  FrNlCOLAI 

PROFESSOR    or    PHYSIOLOSy    AT    BERLIN    UNIVERSITT 


TRANSLATED  FROM 

THE  ORIGINAL  GERMAN 

BY 

CONSTANCE  A.  GRANDE 

AND 

JULIAN  GRANDE 


NEW  YORK 
THE  CENTURY  CO. 

1919 


Copyright,  1918,  by 
The  Century  Co. 


Published,  October,  1918 


TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE 

"The  Biology  of  War"  was  written  in  German,  by  a  Ger- 
man, for  Germans,  written  since  the  outbreak  of  war,  in  the 
German  fortress  of  Graudenz  in  which  the  author  was  im- 
prisoned. If  the  German  Government  could  have  had  its 
way,  the  book  would  never  have  seen  the  light,  at  any  rate 
not  so  long  as  the  w^ar  lasted ;  but  by  a  happy  chance  the 
manuscript  was  conveyed  to  Switzerland,  where  it  was 
brought  out  by  the  leading  German-Swiss  publishing  firm, 
Orell  Ftissli  of  Zurich. 

When  the  book  appeared,  it  was  promptly  barred  from 
Germany,  the  reasons  for  which  will  soon  be  obvious  to  any- 
one who  reads  it ;  and  the  author  was  condemned  to  five 
months'  imprisonment  in  a  common  jail.  At  present  he  is 
interned  in  Germany,  and  carefully  watched.  Indeed,  were 
it  not  for  his  position,  he  would  probably  still  be  in  prison 
like  Liebknecht,  or  would  have  shared  the  fate  of  Edith 
Cavell  or  Captain  Fryatt. 

Dr.  G.  F.  Nicolai  was  born  in  Berlin  in  1872.  Before  the 
outbreak  of  war  he  was  known  throughout  Germany  as  the 
leading  heart  specialist,  in  which  capacity  he  had  attended  the 
German  Empress,  whom  he  is  said  to  have  saved  from  a 
troublesome  malady.  He  also  held  the  chair  of  physiology  at 
Berlin  University.  He  married  a  daughter  of  Admiralitat- 
srat  Buslay,  and  has  one  child,  a  daughter. 

Even  before  the  war  Dr.  Nicolai  was  opposed  to  Prussian 
militarism,  and  when  war  broke  out  and  Germany  violated 
Belgian  neutrality,  he  openly  protested.  For  this  he  was 
degraded  from  his  professorship  and  his  property  confis- 
cated ;  and  finally  he  was  sent  to  Graudenz  fortress,  occupy- 
ing during  part  of  the  time  the  room  famous  as  the  "Fritz 

V 


vi  TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE 

Reuter  room."  (Fritz  Reuter,  born  1810,  died  1874,  was 
condemned  to  death  in  1833  because  he  belonged  to  a  German 
students'  society — a  sentence  commuted  into  one  of  thirty 
years'  imprisonment.  In  1840,  however,  on  the  accession  of 
Frederick  William  IV  of  Prussia,  he  was  liberated.  His  tales 
and  poems,  mostly  in  Low  German,  some  of  which  have  been 
translated  into  English,  are  still  much  read  and  appreciated.) 

Professor  Nicolai's  property  having  been  confiscated,  his 
wife  and  child  were  left  penniless.  Her  father,  who  belongs 
to  a  Prussian  Junker  family,  offered  her  a  home  with  every 
comfort  if  she  would  renounce  her  husband.  She  replied  that 
she  would  prefer  to  become  a  charwoman  or  a  street-cleaner 
and  earn  her  bread  and  that  of  her  child  in  this  way  rather 
than  renounce  her  husband. 

Professor  Nicolai's  friends,  anxious  to  save  him  from  hav- 
ing his  health  ruined  by  long  confinement,  brought  up  his 
case  in  the  German  Reichstag,  but  to  no  purpose.  Those  who 
have  seen  him  recently  declare  that  his  imprisonment  and 
suffering  have  greatly  aged  him,  and  that  he  now  looks  quite 
a  broken  man.  By  nature,  however,  he  is  a  very  vigorous 
man,  whose  health  was  nowise  impaired  by  severe  study  or 
by  his  wide  travels  before  the  war,  although  he  sometimes 
visited  unhealthy  climates.  For  instance,  he  has  visited  such 
-diverse  countries  as  Malacca,  the  United  States  of  America, 
Russia,  Lapland,  and  China. 

"The  Biology  of  War"  is  hardly  a  book  that  the  average 
European  would  be  capable  of  reading  even  in  his  own  lan- 
guage. In  the  United  States,  however,  it  is  likely,  we  think, 
to  find  proportionately  far  more  readers  because  of  the  high 
general  level  of  education  and  the  scientific  turn  of  mind  of 
so  many  Americans.  This  prevision  is  borne  out  by  the 
experience  of  Dr.  Nicolai's  Swiss  publisher,  who  states  that 
"The  Biology  of  War"  has  been  much  more  read  than  he 
expected  even  in  Switzerland,  but  not  so  much  by  specialists 
or  biologists  as  by  persons  of  good  general  education. 


TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE  vii 

Although  the  English  translation  has  been  simplified  as 
much  as  possible  without  doing  violence  to  the  author's  ideas, 
nevertheless  the  fact  remains  that  this  book  is  not  for  the 
intellectually  indolent.  Certain  passages  it  has  not  been  pos- 
sible to  make  very  simple  because  the  ideas  themselves  are 
profound,  while  the  reasoning  is  throughout  very  close.  The 
whole  book  is  written  from  the  standpoint  of  a  biologist,  while 
the  medical  man  not  infrequently  appears  in  it  as  well :  the 
breadth  of  the  author's  knowledge  and  the  variety  of  his  quo- 
tations, classical,  literary,  and  historical,  cannot  fail  to  aston- 
ish every  reader. 

The  book  has  no  affinity  whatsoever  with  an  ordinary  paci- 
fist publication,  nor  is  Dr.  Nicolai  one  of  those  who  are  the 
friends  of  every  country  but  their  own.  One  of  his  main 
contentions  is  that  the  dusk  of  the  War  Gods  has  come.  An 
animal,  he  says,  just  before  it  becomes  extinct,  usually  grows 
monstrously  unwieldy  and  clumsy.  War  has  done  likewise: 
it  has  grown  beyond  all  bounds.  Again,  he  contends  that 
there  is  no  biological  justification  for  war  now,  and  in  par- 
ticular none  whatever  for  the  favorite  German  argument  that 
without  war  nations  become  degenerate  and  effeminate.  Fi- 
nally, he  asserts  that  war  is  never  to  be  regarded  as  a  neces- 
sary and  inevitable  part  of  nature,  something  which,  like  an 
earthquake,  is  wholly  beyond  human  control,  and  something 
to  which  we  must  submit.  On  the  contrary,  war  is  in  the 
category  of  something  not  inevitable  and  to  which  we  need 
not  submit.  War  ought  to  be  regarded  as  we  regard  smallpox 
or  the  plague,  as  something  which  we  can  and  ought  to  eradi- 
cate by  taking  proper  preventive  measures. 

The  book,  of  course,  always  refers  specially  to  Germany, 
and  the  effects  of  war  are  largely  illustrated  by  showing 
their  action  in  Germany.  The  writer  demonstrates,  for  in- 
stance, the  influence  of  Bernhard,  Treitschke,  Moltke  and 
others  on  the  German  mind.  But  no  one  must  imagine  that 
Dr.  Nicolai  condemns  all  war  of  every  description:  revolu- 


viii  TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE 

tionary  and  defensive  wars  he  would  put  in  a  category  by 
themselves  as  justifiable.  That  wars  may  be  prevented  he 
urges  that  a  society  of  nations  should  be  constructed;  and 
the  brotherhood  of  man  and  the  strengthening  of  all  human 
bonds,  whether  between  the  members  of  the  family  of  nations 
or  between  members  of  a  human  family,  must  become  reali- 
ties, not  ideals.  It  may  be  that  he  does  not  regard  the  ques- 
tion from  precisely  the  same  angle  as  President  Wilson,  but 
his  main  lines  of  thought  are  the  same. 

The  book,  as  we  have  hinted,  is  reasoned  out  like  Euclid, 
wherefore  it  is  useless,  interesting  as  it  may  be,  to  dip  into 
it  and  read  a  chapter  here  and  another  there.  No  real  idea 
of  the  author's  meaning  can  be  gained  thus,  and  it  would 
be  an  injustice  to  what  we  think  most  readers  will  agree  is, 
beyond  doubt,  the  most  remarkable  book  which  this  war  has 
yet  produced,  a  volume  likely  to  live  in  history  even  when  the 
scientific  ideas  which  it  contains  have  been  superseded  by  the 
wider  knowledge  of  generations  to  come. 

Constance  A.  Grande 

Julian  Grande 

Berne,  Switzerland, 
June,  1918. 

Postscript — Since  writing  the  above  the  world  outside  Ger- 
many has  been  gratified  to  learn  that  Professor  Nicolai  has 
escaped  from  Germany  in  a  German  aeroplane  and  has 
reached  Denmark.  The  aeroplane  was  the  "Albatross  3415" 
and  of  a  somewhat  old-fashioned  type.  Dr.  Nicolai 's  com- 
panion on  board  was  Dr.  Silberhorn,  a  German  subaltern. 
A  second  aeroplane,  the  "F.  16,"  accompanied  the  "Alba- 
tross 3415."  On  board  were  a  lance-corporal  and  a  pilot,  both 
Germans.  As  neither  Professor  Nicolai  nor  his  companions 
were  armed,  they  have  not  been  interned.  At  present  it  is 
better  to  refrain  from  giving  details  of  this  escape. 


INTRODUCTION 

1. — THE  ORIGIN  OP  THIS  BOOK 

§  1. — Its  Condemnatory  Tone  as  Regards  Germany 

The  outward  and  visible  cause  why  this  book  was  written 
was  the  manifesto  to  the  civilized  world  published  in  the  early 
days  of  October,  1914,  by  ninety-three  representatives  of  Ger- 
man science  and  art.  The  unfortunate  effects  of  this  could 
easily  have  been  foreseen  by  any  dispassionate  person.  Al- 
though probably  every  one  would  now  admit  that  the  dispas- 
sionate few  of  those  days  had  right  on  their  side,  yet  many 
will  disapprove  of  the  selection  of  a  German  manifesto  as  a 
peg  on  which  to  hang  a  book,  urging  that  there  are  surely 
enough  reprehensible  manifestos  published  outside  Germany. 
This  German  manifesto,  however,  was  the  cause  of  this  work, 
which,  I  hasten  to  insist,  is  written  primarily  for  Germans. 
Consequently,  wherever  isolated  events  are  discussed,  it  is  in 
the  main  only  German  conditions  which  are  under  considera- 
tion. 

Apart  from  the  fact  that  it  is  impossible  to  gain  a  correct 
idea  of  foreign  opinion  from  the  fragmentary  extracts  quoted 
from  the  foreign  press,  the  only  way  to  attain  the  necessary 
independence  of  mind  is  not  to  inquire  whether  other  nations 
besides  Germany  have  been  to  blame,  and  to  endeavor  to  make 
sure  no  one  can  cast  a  stone  at  us.  More  than  ever  is  it  to-day 
incumbent  on  every  person  and  every  nation  to  shoulder  his 
or  its  share  of  responsibility  for  the  war.  Even  supposing 
that  any  foreign  learned  society  had  issued  a  more  regrettable 
manifesto  than  this  hot-blooded  appeal,  which  is  excusable, 
considering  the  anxious  time  when  it  was  drafted;  yet  those 

ix 


X  INTRODUCTION 

who  have  genuine  German  civilization  at  heart  are  the  very 
persons  who  need  not  concern  themselves  much  about  foreign 
manifestos,  since  Germany  and  Germany  alone  is  responsible 
for  her  own  words  and  deeds. 

These  preliminary  observations  are  necessary  because  other- 
wise the  fact  that  it  is  mainly  Germany  which  is  instanced 
as  exemplifying  the  bad  effects  of  war  might  have  made  it 
appear  as  if  this  book  were  an  unconditional  acknowledgment 
of  the  justice  of  the  view  that  it  is  the  German  people  who 
have  been  guilty  of  by  far  the  worst  barbarities. 

Again,  every  nation  in  the  world  can  and  even  ought  to 
hope  that  it  and  its  institutions  will  one  day  serve  as  a  model 
for  a  whole  world  full  of  reforming  zeal;  for  such  a  hope  is 
the  strongest  incentive  to  progress.  But  if  Germany  enter- 
tains any  such  expectation,  she  must  redouble  her  efforts  to 
revive  the  old  German  idealism  and  to  keep  it  pure  and  un- 
defiled. 

"Volk,  o  deutsebes  Volk,  die  mussen  am  grobsten  dich  schelten. 
Die  dich  in  Herzens  Grund  immer  am  meisten  geliebt.^ 

Now,  just  because  this  manifesto  was  apparently  likely  to 
give  the  lie  to  our  glorious  past,  it  cannot  fail  to  cause  every 
true  patriot  and  friend  of  humanity  (the  one  ought  not  to  ex- 
clude the  other)  to  protest.' 

1  "Epipamme  aiis  Baden-Baden,"  by  Th.  Fischer,  1S76.  Stuttgart. 
"Hass  und  Liebe,"  p.  .33. 

2  For  truth's  sake  it  must  be  observed  that,  at  any  rate,  some  of  the 
signatories  now  regret  their  action.  Even  in  December,  1914,  they 
wrote,  telling  me  as  much,  so  that  it  would  seem  as  if  the  intoxication 
which  could  so  greatly  obscure  their  conceptions  of  truth  and  impartial- 
ity must  have  been  comparatively  short-lived.  I  may  also  state  that  in 
June,  1915,  when  this  manifesto  was  reprinted  in  the  "Aktion,"  without 
a  word  of  comment,  one  of  the  signatories  wrote  to  that  journal,  stating 
that  he  must  protest  against  such  a  document  being  reprinted,  for  "of 
course"  he  no  longer  held  such  views,  "and  it  was  an  insult  to  continue 
to  impute  them  to  him."  In  itself  such  a  rapid  change  of  mind  is  cause 
for  satisfaction,  but  it  is  amusing  that  this  signatory  should  consider  it 
an  insult  not  to  be  instantly  taken  for  a  chameleon. 


INTRODUCTION  si 

§  2. — The  Manifesto  to  the  Civilized  World 

The  full  text  of  this  notorious  document  is  as  follows: 

As  representatives  of  German  science  and  art  we  protest  before 
the  whole  civilized  world  against  the  calumnies  and  lies  with  which 
our  enemies  are  striving  to  besmirch  Germany's  undetiled  cause  in 
the  severe  struggle  for  existence  which  has  been  forced  upon  her. 
The  course  of  events  has  mercilessly  disproved  the  reports  of  fictitious 
German  defeats.  All  the  more  vigorous  are  the  efforts  now  being 
made  to  distort  truth  and  disseminate  suspicion.  It  is  against 
these  that  we  are  raising  our  voices,  and  those  voices  shall  make 
the  truth  known. 

I. — IT    IS    NOT    TRUE    THAT   GERMANY    WAS    GUILTY    OF    THIS    WAR 

Neither  the  nation  nor  the  Government  nor  the  emperor  wanted 
it.  The  Germans  did  everything  possible  to  avert  it,  documentary 
evidence  of  which  is  before  all  the  world.  In  the  twenty-six  years  of 
his  reign  William  II  has  frequently  shown  himself  the  defender  of 
the  world's  peace,  as  has  frequently  been  acknowledged  even  by 
our  enemies.  Indeed,  this  same  emperor,  whom  they  are  now  pre- 
suming to  call  an  Attila,  was  ridiculed  for  twenty  years  and  more 
because  of  his  unswerving  devotion  to  peace.  Not  until  our  people 
was  attacked  from  three  sides  by  superior  forces,  which  had  long 
been  lying  in  wait  at  the  frontier,  did  it  rise  as  one  man. 

2. — IT  IS   NOT  TRUE  THAT  WE  CRIMINALLY  VIOLATED  BELGIAN 
NEUTRALITY 

It  can  be  proved  that  France  and  England  had  resolved  to  violate 
it,  and  it  can  be  proved  that  Belgium  had  agreed  to  this.  It  would 
have  been  suicidal  not  to  have  anticipated  them.^ 

1  On  August  14,  1914,  Ilerr  von  Bethmann-Hollweg,  tlien  German 
Chancellor,  said  in  the  Reichstag:  "Gentlemen,  we  stand  now  perforce 
on  guard.  Necessity  knows  no  law.  Our  troops  have  occupied  Lux- 
emburg, possibly  trodden  lielgian  soil.  Gentlemen,  this  is  contrary  to 
international  law.  ...  In  this  way  we  have  been  forced  to  override  the 
justifiable  protests  of  the  Belgian  and  Luxemburg  governments.  We 
ehall  repair  the  injustice  which  we  are  committing  as  soon  as  our  mili- 
tary object  is  attained." 


xii  INTRODUCTION 

3. — IT    IS    NOT    TRUE    THAT   THE    LIFE   AND    PROPERTY    OF    A    SINGLE 

BELGIAN  SUBJECT  WERE  INTERFERED  WITH  BY  OUR  SOLDIERS 

EXCEPT   UNDER  THE  DIREST   NECESSITY 

Again  and  again,  despite  all  warnings,  did  the  population  lie  in 
ambush  and  fire  on  them,  mutilating  wounded  men,  and  murdering 
doctors  even  while  actually  engaged  in  their  noble  ministrations. 
There  could  be  no  baser  misrepresentation  than  to  say  nothing  about 
the  crime  of  these  assassins  and  then  to  call  the  Germans  criminals 
because  of  their  having  administered  a  just  punishment  to  them. 

4. — IT   IS  NOT  TRUE  THAT  OUR  TROOPS   BEHAVED  BRUTALLY   IN   REGARD 

TO   LOUVAIN 

They  were  forced  to  exercise  reprisals  with  a  heavy  heart  on  the 
furious  population,  which  treacherously  attacked  them  in  their 
quarters,  by  firing  upon  a  portion  of  the  town.  The  greater  por- 
tion of  Louvain  is  still  standing,  and  the  famous  town  hall  is  quite 
uninjured.  It  was  saved  from  the  flames  owing  to  the  self-sacrifice 
of  our  soldiers.  Every  German  would  regret  works  of  art  having 
been  destroyed  in  this  war  or  their  being  destroyed  in  the  future. 
But  just  as  we  decline  to  admit  that  any  one  loves  art  more  than 
we  do,  even  so  do  we  refuse  no  less  decidedly  to  pay  the  price  of  a 
German  defeat  for  the  preservation  of  a  work  of  art. 

5. — IT  IS  NOT  TRUE  THAT  WE  DISREGARD  THE  PRECEPTS  OF  INTER- 
NATIONAL LAW  IN  OUR  METHODS  OP  WARFARE,  IN  WHICH 
THERE   IS    NO    UNBRIDLED   CRUELTY 

But  in  the  East  the  ground  is  soaked  with  the  blood  of  women 
and  children  slain  by  Russian  hordes,  and  in  the  West  the  breasts  of 
our  soldiers  are  lacerated  with  Dumdum  bullets.  No  one  has  less 
right  to  pretend  to  be  defending  European  civilization  than  those 
who  are  the  allies  of  Russians  and  Serbians,  and  are  not  ashamed 
to  incite  Mongolians  and  negroes  to  fight  against  white  men. 

6. — IT   IS   NOT  TRUE  THAT   FIGHTING  OUR   SO-CALLED   MILITARISM   IS 

NOT  FIGHTING  AGAINST  OUR  CIVILIZATION,  AS  OUR  ENEMIES 

HYPOCRITICALLY   ALLEGE 

Without  German  militarism  German  civilization  would  be  wiped 
off  the  face  of  the  earth.     The  former  arose  out  of  and  for  the 


INTRODUCTION  xiii 

protection  of  the  latter  in  a  country  which  for  centuries  had  suffered 
from  invasion  as  no  other  has  done.  The  German  Army  and  the 
German  people  are  one,  and  the  consciousness  of  this  makes  seventy 
millions  of  Germans  brothers  to-day,  without  regard  to  education, 
rank,  or  party. 

We  cannot  deprive  our  enemies  of  the  poisoned  weapons  of  false- 
hood. All  we  can  do  is  to  cry  aloud  to  the  whole  world  that  they 
are  bearing  false  witness  against  us.  To  you  who  know  us,  who, 
together  with  us,  have  hitherto  been  the  guardians  of  man's  highest 
possessions — to  you  we  cry  aloud,  "Believe  us;  believe  that  to  the 
last  we  will  fight  as  a  civilized  nation,  to  whom  the  legacy  of  a 
Goethe,  a  Beethoven,  and  a  Kant  is  no  less  sacred  than  hearth  and 
home." 

This  we  vouchsafe  to  you  on  the  faith  of  our  name  and  our  honor. 

The  manifesto  was  signed  by  the  following  seventeen  artists 
actually  practising  their  profession :  Peter  Behrends,  Franz 
von  Defregger,  Wilhelm  Dorpfeld,  Eduard  von  Gebhardt, 
Adolf  von  Hildebrand,  Ludwig  Hoffmann,  Leopold  Graf 
Kalkreuth,  Arthur  Kampf,  Fritz  Aug.  von  Kaulbach,  Max 
Klinger,  Max  Liebermann,  Ludwig  Manzel,  Bruno  Paul,  Fritz 
Schaper,  Franz  von  Stuck,  Hans  Thoma,  Wilh.  Triibner. 

By  these  fifteen  natural  scientists:  Adolf  von  Beyer,  Karl 
Engler,  Emil  Fischer,  Wilhelm  Foerster,  Fritz  Haber,  Ernst 
Haeckel,  Gustav  Hellmann,  Felix  Klein,  Philipp  Lenard, 
Walter  Nernst,  Wilhelm  Ostwald,  Max  Planck,  Wilhelm  Ront- 
gen,  Wilhelm  Wien,  Richard  Willstiitter. 

By  these  twelve  theologians :  Adolf  Deissmann,  Albert  Ehr- 
hard,  Gerhard  Esser,  Adolf  von  Harnack,  Wilhelm  Herrmann, 
Alois  Knopfler,  Anton  Koch,  Josef  Mausbach,  Sebastian  Mer- 
kle,  Adolf  von  Schlatter,  August  Schmidlin,  and  Reinhold 
Seeberg. 

By  these  nine  poets:  Richard  Dehmel,  Herbert  Eulen- 
berg,  Ludwig  Fulda,  Max  Halbe,  Gerhard  and  Karl  Haupt- 
mann,  Hermann  Sudermann,  Karl  Vollmoller,  and  Richard 
Voss. 

By  these  seven  jurists ;  Lujo  Brentano,  Johannes  Conrad, 


xiv  INTRODUCTION 

Theodor  Kipp,  Paul  Laband,  Franz  von  Liszt,  Georg  von 
Mayr,  and  Gustav  von  Schmoller. 

By  these  seven  medical  men :  Emil  von  Behring,  Paul  Ehr- 
lieh,  Albert  Neisser,  Albert  Plehn,  Max  Rubner,  Wilhelm 
Waldeyer,  and  August  von  Wassermann. 

By  these  seven  historians:  Heinrich  Finke,  J.  J.  de  Groot, 
Karl  Lamprecht,  Maximilian  Lenz,  Eduard  Meyer,  Karl  Rob- 
ert, and  Martin  Spahn, 

By  these  five  art  critics :  Wilhelm  von  Bode,  Alois  Brandt, 
Justus  Brinkmann,  Friedrieh  von  Duhn,  and  Theodor  Wie- 
gand. 

By  these  four  philosophers:  Rudolf  Eucken,  Alois  Riehl, 
Wilhelm  Windelband,  and  Wilh.  Wundt. 

By  these  four  philologists:  Andreas  Heusler,  Heinrich 
Morf,  Karl  Vossler,  Ulrich  von  Wilamowitz-Moellendorff. 

By  these  three  musicians:  Engelbert  Humperdinck,  Sieg- 
fried Wagner,  and  Felix  von  Weingartner. 

By  these  two  politicians:  Friedrieh  Naumann  and  Georg 
Reicke. 

By  this  theatrical  manager:  Max  Reinhardt. 

§  3. — German  Truth,  Past  and  Present 

This  document,  therefore,  was  signed  altogether  by  ninety- 
three  German  men,  some  of  them  very  well  known.  Among 
them  were  fifteen  natural  scientists.  Even  if  this  is  not  a 
very  large  number  in  comparison  with  the  seventy-eight 
other  signatories  (thirty-five  representatives  of  art  and  let- 
ters, sixteen  moral  philosophers,  twenty  scientists  of  various 
kinds,  and  seven  medical  men),  yet  it  includes  almost  all 
Germans  of  real  celebrity  in  this  branch  of  science.  Now, 
the  wording  of  the  manifesto  alone  ought  to  have  horrified 
any  natural  scientist  even  if  he  approved  of  its  tenor.  I 
shall  not  discuss  the  fairness  of  rejecting  the  mendacities  of 
foreign  newspapers  without  mentioning  the  lying  war  news  of 
the  German  press.  The  fact  remains,  however,  that  every 
one  then  knew,  for  instance,   how  little  the  German   Com- 


INTRODUCTION  xv 

mission  of  Inquiry  into  Belgian  atrocities  was  really  able  to 
ascertain.  It  might  of  course  be  argued  that  it  was  no  busi- 
ness of  the  signatories  to  have  referred  to  this  even  although 
the  mere  hint  that  the  vile  charges  brought  against  enemy 
soldiers  were  not  believed  made  certain  manifestos  of  foreign 
intellectuals  appear  friendly. 

Six  times,  however,  does  this  manifesto  contain  the  words, 
"It  is  not  true. ' '  Now,  five  of  the  six  points  raised  unques- 
tionably cannot  be  thus  flatly  denied.  Whether  a  person  has 
or  has  not  been  guilty  of  a  particular  action  (Paragraph  1), 
whether  he  has  committed  a  crime  or  acted  under  compulsion 
(Paragraph  2),  whether  he  is  exercising  reprisals  brutally  or 
with  a  heavy  heart  (Paragraph  4),  whether  imperialism  and 
civilization  are  irreconcilable  or  go  hand  in  hand  (Paragraph 
6),  and  finally  whether  a  person  has  acted  with  or  without 
regard  to  the  ill-defined,  vague  precepts  of  international 
law  (Paragraph  5),  cannot  be  positively  asserted  by  any  one, 
and  in  each  individual  case  opinion  depends  upon  individual 
sense  of  justice. 

Even  in  Paragraphs  3  and  5,  where  definite  details  were 
cited  as  to  what  had  been  done  in  Belgium  and  East  Prussia, 
the  categorical  statement,  "It  is  not  true,"  seems  for  other, 
but  not  less  sound  reasons,  misplaced,  since  at  best  such  evi- 
dence can  have  been  only  hearsay  "from  a  thoroughly  trust- 
worthy source."  Above  all,  no  one  can  with  a  good  conscience 
support  the  negative  assertion  that  "the  life  and  property  of 
not  a  single  Belgian  subject  were  interfered  with  except  under 
necessity." 

Every  one  is  naturally  entitled  to  consider  anything  as 
truth  of  the  correctness  of  which  he  is  morally  convinced  un- 
less he  is  posing  as  a  "representative  of  science";  for  it  is 
the  chief  distinction  of  a  man  of  science  not  to  call  anything 
true  unless  he  be  convinced  by  impartial  observation  that  it 
is  so:  The  recognition  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  this  im- 
partially established  truth  is  a  debt  which  the  present  gen- 
eration owes  in  part  to  German  thoroughness,  and  the  patriot- 


xvi  INTRODUCTION 

ism  of  departing  from  it  cannot  be  accepted  without  question. 

The  three  main  witnesses  invoked,  Goethe,  Beethoven,  and 
Kant,  would  scarcely  have  signed  such  a  manifesto,  for  all 
three  preserved  their  impartiality  even  in  time  of  war. 
Goethe,  indeed,  especially  during  the  Wars  of  German  Inde- 
pendence, was  often  enough  blamed  for  his  impartiality,  and 
subsequently  for  his  sharp  condemnation  of  "German  gush 
about  the  Fatherland. ' '  ^  Once,  in  his  irritation,  he  went 
the  length  of  saying,  **The  world  may  still  have  to  wait  a 
couple  of  hundred  years  before  it  can  be  said  of  the  Germans 
that  it  was  a  long  while  since  they  were  barbarians. ' '  * 

As  for  Kant,  it  was  during  the  first  Coalition  War  that  he 
published  his  plan  for  perpetual  peace,  in  which,  with  praise- 
worthy independence,  he  breaks  a  lance  in  favor  of  French 
institutions,  just  then  being  opposed  by  his  own  country. 
Moreover,  the  founder  of  critical  philosophy  would  never 
have  described  as  truth  what  could  be  only  a  matter  of  opin- 
ion. 

Finally,  Beethoven 's  last  great  work,  the  Ninth  Symphony, 
is  a  hymn  of  praise  to  universal  brotherhood,  while  he  dedi- 
cated the  Third  Symphony,  the  one  which  he  himself  con- 
sidered his  finest,  to  Germany's  arch  enemy,  Bonaparte;* 

I  agree  with  the  signatories  of  the  manifesto  in  believing 
that  German  ideas  will  prevail  if  the  legacy  bequeathed  to 
the  Germans  by  these  three  shining  lights  is  to  them  "as 
sacred  as  their  worldly  goods. ' '  To  me,  however,  it  seems  no 
mere  chance  that  these  three  greatest  Germans  should  have 
differed  from  the  present  generation  in  their  ideas  about  dis- 
putes between  nation  and  nation;  for  despite  technical  aei- 

1  Goethe's  letter  to  Zelter,  August  24,  1823. 

2  Eckermann's  "Conversations  with  Goethe,"  Thursday,  May  3,  1827. 
Brockhaus,  7th  Ed.,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  114. 

3  This  is  not  inconsistent  with  the  fact  that  afterward,  when  Napo- 
leon became  emperor,  Beethoven  revoked  the  "Dedication  to  the  Con- 
sul." He  considered  the  Emperor  Napoleon  aa  an  enemy  of  human 
brotherhood. 


INTRODUCTION  xvii 

ence,  soldiery,  and  trade,  the  peculiar  virtue  of  the  German  is 
still  a  certain  faculty  of  just  appreciation.  For  us  Germans 
the  upward  path  may  be  by  way  of  Essen,  Potsdam,  and 
Hamburg,  but  it  must  not  leave  Weimar  out  of  account. 

This  manifesto,  which  was  apparently  the  negation  of  every 
great  and  fine  quality  which  had  hitherto  been  attributed  to 
and  expected  from  men  of  science,  was  signed  by  Germany's 
[greatest  sons;  and  this  was  the  sort  of  truth  for  which  Ger- 
many's most  honored  seekers  after  truth  interceded.  Some, 
certainly,  were  able  to  excuse  themselves,  if  it  be  an  excuse,  b^' 
urging  that  they  had  never  read  the  manifesto,  but  had  allowed 
their  signatures  to  be  appended  to  it  on  the  strength  of  a  tele- 
gram from  Herr  Erzberger,  the  well-known  Center  party 
deputy.  Erzberger  as  an  apostle  of  German  science  and 
learning!  In  any  case,  it  would  be  well  to  inquire  some- 
what more  closely  into  the  unquestionably  very  singular  man- 
ner in  which  this  manifesto  came  to  be  launched. 

§  4. — A  Manifesto  to  Europeans 

The  fact  remains,  however,  that  this  manifesto  was  pub- 
lished and  distributed  broadcast ;  and  considering  how  the  war 
seemed  to  have  metamorphosed  men  of  science,  it  seemed  de- 
sirable, not  to  say  necessary,  to  appeal  to  a  wider  public  es- 
pecially to  maintain  a  uniform  conception  of  civilization,  just 
then  divided.  For  although  only  the  few  are  capable  of  pro- 
moting civilization,  yet  it  is  by  the  standard  of  popular  feeling 
that  the  maintenance  of  its  continuity  is  insured.  In  mid- 
October,  1914,  therefore,  together  with  Professor  Albert  Ein- 
stein and  Privy  Councilor  Wilhelm  Forster,  I  drafted  the  fol- 
lowing manifesto: 

Technical  science  and  intercommunication  are  clearly  tending  to 
force  us  to  recognize  the  fact  that  international  relations  exist,  and 
consequently  that  a  world-embracing  civiUzation  exists.  Yet  never 
has  any  previous  war  caused  30  complete  an  interruption  of  that 


xviii  INTRODUCTION 

cooperation  which  should  exist  between  civilized  nations.  It  may, 
of  course,  be  that  the  reason  why  we  are  so  profoundly  impressed  by 
this  is  only  that  we  were  already  united  by  so  many  ties  the  severing 
of  which   is  painful. 

That  such  a  state  of  things  should  exist  must  not  astonish  us. 
Nevertheless,  those  who  care  in  the  slightest  degree  for  this  universal 
world  civilization  are  under  a  twofold  obligation  to  strive  for  the 
maintenance  of  these  principles.  Those  who  might  have  been  ex- 
pected to  care  for  such  things,  in  particular  men  of  science  and  art, 
have  hitherto  almost  invariably  confined  their  utterances  to  a  hint 
that  the  present  suspension  of  direct  relations  coincided  with  the 
cessation  of  any  desire  for  their  continuance. 

Such  feelings  are  not  to  be  excused  by  any  national  passions. 
They  are  unworthy  of  what  every  one  has  hitherto  understood  by 
civilization,  and  it  would  be  a  misfortune  indeed  were  they  generally 
to  prevail  among  persons  of  culture;  and  not  only  a  misfortune 
for  civilization,  but,  we  are  firmly  convinced,  a  misfortune  for 
the  very  purpose  for  which,  after  all,  in  the  last  resort  all  the 
present  hell  was  let  loose — the  national  existence  of  the  different 
countries. 

Technical  achievement  has  made  the  world  smaller,  and  to-day 
the  countries  of  that  large  peninsula  Europe  seem  brought  as  near 
to  one  another  as  the  cities  of  each  individual  small  Mediterranean 
peninsula  used  to  be ;  and  Europe — it  might  almost  be  said  the  world 
— is  already  one  and  indivisible,  owing  to  its  multitudinous  associa- 
tions. 

Hence  it  must  be  the  duty  of  educated  and  philanthropic  Euro- 
peans to  make,  at  any  rate,  an  effort  lest  Europe,  owing  to  her  not 
being  sufiSciently  strongly  welded  together,  should  suffer  the  same 
tragic  fate  as  ancient  Greece.  Is  Europe  gradually  to  be  exhausted 
by  fratricidal  war  and  perish? 

The  war  raging  at  present  will  scarcely  end  in  a  victory  for  any 
one,  but  probably  only  in  defeat.  Consequently,  it  would  seem  that 
educated  men  in  all  countries  not  only  should,  but  absolutely  must, 
exert  all  their  influence  to  prevent  the  conditions  of  peace  being  the 
source  of  future  wars,  and  this  no  matter  what  the  present  uncertain 
issue  of  the  conflict  may  be.  Above  all  must  they  direct  their  effo|1:3 
to  seeing  that  advantage  is  taken  of  the  fact  that  this  war  has  thrown 
all  European  conditions,  as  it  were,  into  a  melting-pot,  to  mold  Eu- 


INTRODUCTION  xix 

rope  into  one  organic  whole,  for  which  both  technical  and  intel- 
lectual conditions  are  ripe. 

This  is  not  the  place  to  discuss  how  this  new  European  order  is 
to  be  brought  about.  We  desire  only  to  assert  in  principle  that  we 
are  firmly  convinced  of  the  time  having  come  for  all  Europe  to  be 
united  together,  in  order  to  protect  her  soil,  her  inhabitants,  and 
her  civilization.^ 

Believing  as  we  do  that  the  desire  for  such  a  state  of  things 
is  latent  in  many  minds,  we  are  anxious  that  it  should  everywhere 
find  expression  and  thus  become  a  force;  and  with  this  end  in 
view  it  seems  to  us  before  all  else  necessary  that  there  should  be  a 
union  of  all  in  any  way  attached  to  European  civilization;  ^  that  is 
to  say,  who  are  what  Goethe  once  almost  prophetically  called  "good 
Europeans."  We  must  never  abandon  hope  that  their  collective 
pronouncement  may  be  heard  by  some  one  even  amidst  the  clash  of 
arms,  most  especially  if  the  "good  Europeans"  of  to-morrow  include 
all  those  who  are  esteemed  and  considered  as  authorities  by  their 
fellow-men. 

To  begin  with,  however,  it  is  needful  that  Europeans  should  unite, 
and  if,  as  we  hope,  there  are  enough  Europeans  in  Europe, — in 
other  words,  enough  persons  to  whom  Europe  is  no  mere  geograph- 
ical tenn,  but  something  which  they  have  profoundly  at  heart, — 
then  we  mean  to  attempt  to  found  such  a  union  of  Europeans. 
We  ourselves  wish  only  to  give  the  first  impulse  to  such  a  union; 
wherefore  we  ask  you,  should  you  be  in  agreement  with  us,  and,  like 
us,  bent  upon  making  the  detenuination  of  Europe  as  widely  known 
as  possible,  to  send  us  your  signature. 

This  appeal  was  sent  out  privately,  and  although  we  re- 
ceived many  sympathetic  letters  about  it,  yet  most  of  the 
writers  declined  to  sign  it.  One  did  not  consider  the  reference 
to  Greece  quite  historically  accurate,  another  thought  that  the 
time  had  gone  by  for  such  a  manifesto,  another  that  it  was 

1  Whether  this  protection  is  to  be  insured  with  weapons  from  the 
armory  of  force  or  of  mind,  need  not  be  discussed  here.  At  all  events, 
Europe  must  learn  to  feel  herself  united  into  one.  (Cf.  Chapter  III 
"War  and  Natural  Selection,"  Chap.  HI,  H  34.) 

■-'  By  European  civilization  I  mean  every  endeavor,  in  the  broad  sense 
of  the  word,  throughout  the  world  the  origin  of  which  can  ultimately 
be  traced  back  to  Eurj^ne. 


XX  INTRODUCTION 

premature,  and  yet  another  that  it  was  undesirable  that  scien- 
tists should  mix  themselves  up  in  the  hurly-burly  of  the  world. 
Obviously  it  would  not  have  been  feasible  to  reconcile  the  views 
of  any  considerable  number  of  men  of  independent  mind  even 
if  in  principle  they  might  all  be  striving  after  the  same  objects. 
Therefore,  as  a  brief  manifesto  of  this  kind  could  have  value 
only  if  backed  by  well-known  names,  we  allowed  the  plan  to 
drop. 

§  5. — The  Personal  Sense  of  Individual  Responsibility 

In  the  circumstances  it  seemed  to  me  that  I  was  bound  to 
raise  my  individual  voice  and  express  what  I  honestly  believed 
to  be  the  rights  and  the  stern  necessities  of  the  situation,  giving 
the  best  reasons  I  could  for  the  faith  that  was  in  me.  There- 
fore I  announced  for  the  summer  term  of  1915  a  lecture  on 
"War  as  a  Biological  Factor  in  Human  Evolution,"  and  be- 
gan to  collect  material  for  it.  My  being  called  up  as  a  doctor, 
and  my  subsequent  imprisonment  in  the  fortress  of  Graudenz, 
made  it  impossible  to  carry  out  this  plan ;  and  the  only  course 
open  to  me  was  to  work  up  into  a  book  the  notes  intended  for 
a  lecture.  I  am  still  of  opinion  that  it  is  just  during  this  war 
that  a  peace  book  should  be  written.  It  is  during  this. fratri- 
cidal European  struggle  that  we  must  insist  upon  being  con- 
sidered as  a  single  unit.  This  is  necessary  not  because  of  a 
handful  of  scholars  who  happened  to  wander  a  little  from  the 
straight  path, — they  will  soon  recover  themselves, — but  be- 
cause of  the  countless  other  persons  who  now  do  not  know 
what  to  do  with  their  lives,  who  must  begin  again  from  the 
beginning  both  literally  and  metaphorically.  In  the  case  of 
all  of  them  many  ideals  have  been  destroyed — ideals  which 
may  have  been  confused,  but  were  deep-rooted.  For  these 
people  I  resolved  to  write  a  book,  assuring  them  that  here  on 
earth  war  is  only  a  passing  phase,  to  which  too  much  im- 
portance must  not  be  attached.  To  achieve  my  purpose  and 
inspire  fair-minded  and  right-thinking  men  with  my  own  tri- 
umphant assurance,  I  have  also  endeavored  to  set  forth  a  vital 


INTRODUCTION  xxi 

conception  of  the  problem  of  war,  in  order  that  every  one  may 
feel  he  has  some  solid  ground  under  his  feet  and  may  again 
know  which  way  to  turn. 

Thus  did  this  peace  book  come  into  being  in  the  midst  of  the 
military  life  of  the  Fortress  of  Graudenz.  The  small  fortress 
was  both  a  hindrance  and  an  incentive  to  its  writing.  It  was 
an  obstacle  because  of  the  lack  of  books  and  the  absence  of 
friends  who  could  have  advised  me  on  matters  of  which  I  have 
no  expert  knoM'ledge.  Nevertheless,  some  friends  did  do  much 
to  help  me,  both  by  pointing  out  many  defects  and  making 
emendations,  for  which  I  desire  once  more  to  tender  them 
thanks.  Again,  unfortunately,  there  were  some  quotations  of 
which  I  had  taken  only  hasty  notes,  meaning  to  base  an  oral 
lecture  upon  them,  and  which  I  was  now  prevented  from  com- 
paring witli  the  full  text.  Yet  this  was  just  what  I  ought  to 
have  been  able  to  do,  for  what  I  wanted  to  prove  was  that 
there  has  never  been  a  single  man  of  real  eminence  who  has 
seen  anything  great  or  beautiful  in  war.  This  I  meant  to 
do  by  citing  numbers  of  passages  from  poets  and  writers  in 
general,  which  I  had  taken  much  pains  to  collect ;  but  the 
mass  of  material  was  so  overwhelming  that  I  could  give  only 
a  small  portion  of  it  in  the  last  part  of  my  book.  I  admit 
that,  however  great  the  quantity  of  material,  it  would  not  have 
been  possible  to  prove  any  such  negative  contention  absolutely 
conclusively,  for  some  one  would  always  have  been  able  to  say 
that  the  enthusiasts  for  war  had  been  left  out  of  account. 
But  let  any  one  of  those  intellectuals,  carried  away  by  the 
intoxication  of  the  moment,  attempt  to  prove  the  contrary.^ 

I  have  referred  to  the  obstacles  with  which  I  had  to  con- 
tend. Let  me  now  mention  the  incentive  to  my  work.  One 
constant  incentive  was  the  Fritz  Reuter  room  -  in  the  fortress. 

1  Cf.  Chapter  XIV. 

2  Fritz  Reuter,  German  humorist,  1810-74.  He  was  a  member  of  the 
German  Students'  Society,  and  in  18,3.'}  was  arrested  and  fondemned  to 
death,  the  sentence  bein{;f  afterward  commuted  to  one  of  thirty  years' 
Imprisonment.  He  was  liberated  in  1840,  on  the  accession  of  Frederick 
William  IV  of  Prussia. — Translator. 


xxii  INTRODUCTION 

This  room,  where  this  German  patriot  spent  years  in  captivity 
because  he  believed  in  Germany,  has  been  converted  into  a 
temple  by  his  former  jailers,  which  is  a  living  instance  of  the 
fact  that  reaction  cannot  endure  forever.  We  may  be  quite 
sure  that  the  very  same  persons  who  to-day  still  continue  to 
decry  as  high  treason  Goethe's  conception  of  the  citizen  of 
Europe  will  in  a  few  years'  time  be  subscribing  to  it,  even  as 
the  successor  of  the  commandant  of  Courbiere  Fortress,  once 
Renter's  jailer,  is  now  keeping  his  cell  in  order  as  a  museum. 

Just  as  certain  of  our  forefathers  in  advance  of  their  time 
enthusiasticalh'  advocated  a  united  Germany,  even  so  do  we 
mean  to  fight  for  a  united  Europe.  That  is  the  hope  inspiring 
this  book;  and  if  I  should  succeed  in  convincing  even  a  few 
persons  that  the  term  "citizen  of  Europe"  is  justified  on 
grounds  alike  of  ethics  and  natural  science,  thereby  render- 
ing another  war  a  shade  less  likely,  then  I  should  feel  that  this 
was  a  reward  for  my  work  for  which  I  scarcely  ventured  to 
hope. 

Come  what  may,  however,  this  book  had  to  be  written. 

Graudenz,  in  the  summer  of  1915. 

G.   F.   NICOLAI. 
2. — THE  POINT  OF   VIEW  OF  THIS  BOOK 

§  6. — War  as  a  Natural  Phenomenon  or  Human  Act 

The  so-called  "objective  methods  of  reasoning"  seem  to  us 
the  highest  achievement  of  modern  science.  The  fact  must 
not  be  overlooked,  however,  that  the  methods  alone  ought  to 
be  objective  or  impartial.  The  isolated  facts  must  be  impar- 
tially collected,  but  the  inferences  therefrom  will  always  eon- 
tain  an  element  of  hypothesis,  and  consequently  a  certain  per- 
sonal element  as  well.  Poincare,^  Lorentz,  and  Einstein,  them- 
selves leading  mathematicians, — ^that  is  to  say,  representatives 

1  Jules  Henri  Poincare,  1854-1912,  French  mathematician,  in  1886 
appointed  professor  at  the  University  of  Paris. — Translator. 


INTRODUCTION  xxiii 

of  the  most  objective  science, — recently  pointed  this  out,  but 
the  points  of  view  they  adopt  could  not  be  more  divergent. 
Now,  if  this  is  true  of  mathematics,  how  much  more  is  it  true 
of  physics,  of  natural  science,  and  of  all  those  branches  of 
knowledge  in  which  efforts  have  been  made  to  apply  natural 
science  merely  as  a  method  ? 

It  is  just  here  that  a  false  objectivity  is  harmful,  as  the 
enemies  of  natural  science  know  only  too  well.  Thus,  one  of 
them  recently  remarked  that  no  one  really  knew  for  certain 
who  his  father  was ;  that  he  cannot  even  positively  rely  upon 
his  mother's  statements,  for  he  has  to  depend  upon  what  she, 
the  doctor,  or  the  midwife  say,  which  may  or  may  not  be 
true.  As  we  do  not  know  even  our  own  parents,  it  is  argued, 
how  can  we  positively  prove  whether  our  remote  ancestors 
were  descended  from  monkeys  or  not  ? 

It  is  easy  to  see  that  by  thus  overstraining  the  conception 
of  what  constitutes  proof,  an  obstacle  is  put  in  the  way  of  all 
increase  of  knowledge.  Such  overscrupulousness  can  never 
do  any  good,  and  at  best  it  helps  only  those  who  always  see 
two  sides  of  a  question,  and  who  would  fain  rescue  not  only 
truth  for  truth's  sake,  but  many  an  article  of  faith  besides. 

In  any  case,  our  positive  knowledge  is  more  increased  by  a 
courageous  one-sidedneSvS  than  by  that  elegant  half-heartedness 
which  is  everlastingly  trying  to  adjust  facts,  and  which  is  in 
no  circumstances  capable  of  doing  more  than  correct  defects, 
never  of  creating  anything  new.  Every  one,  indeed,  feels  in- 
stinctively that  it  amounts  to  an  utter  lack  of  either  intellect 
or  style.  Our  age,  however,  always  anxious  to  be  impartial 
and  fair  "all  round,"  quite  seriously  imagines  that  faith  and 
science,  beauty  and  fashion,  art  and  money-making,  war  and 
humanity,  liberal  and  socialistic  ideas,  internationalism  and 
nationalism,  and  much  else  besides,  are  still  reconcilable  with 
one  another.  Such  impartiality  is  in  itself  never  justified. 
In  the  case  of  natural  phenomena,  however,  it  can,  at  anj^  rate, 
be  partly  understood,  because  there  is  no  cogent  reason  why 
we  should  apply  one  epithet  to  them  and  one  only.     Thus  it  is 


xxiv  INTRODUCTION 

allowable  to  describe  the  eruption  of  a  volcano  as  both  beauti- 
ful and  destructive ;  we  may  note  the  grace  of  a  tiger 's  spring 
without  for  a  moment  forgetting  that  it  may  cost  the  life  of 
a  human  being.  The  volcano  is  undoubtedly  part  of  nature, 
which  has  no  choice  but  to  obey  certain  fixed  laws,  and  the 
tiger  may  be  considered  in  the  same  light.  They  are  natural 
phenomena,  the  effects  of  which  we  can  change  (for  instance, 
by  not  inhabiting  volcanic  districts  and  by  exterminating  the 
tiger),  but  which  themselves  will  never  change.  This  is  per- 
haps why  man  as  an  onlooker  is  entitled  to  consider  them  from 
whatever  point  of  view  he  chooses.  In  the  case  of  human 
action  it  is  quite  different,  for  so  long  as  we  refuse  to  give  up 
the  right  of  insisting  upon  our  own  individuality  and  pur- 
suing our  own  purposes,  so  long  must  we  judge  man's  acts 
absolutely  as  those  of  an  individual  man.  War,  however,  is 
a  human  action,  and  must  be  judged  accordingly.  Any  mid- 
dle course  would  tend  to  confusion,  and  in  short  be  almost 
contrary  to  morality.^ 

We  may  love  or  hate  war.  Like  good  old  Herbart,^  we 
may  say  that  "we  delight  not  in  strife,"  or,  like  Ihering,  in 
his  love  of  battle,  that  "we  delight  in  strife";  but  what  we 
may  not  do  is  to  disapprove  of  it  or  excuse  it  in  principle  be- 
cause of  all  its  accompanying  circumstances.  War,  like  every- 
thing else,  should  have  light  thrown  upon  it  from  every  side 
before  being  criticized,  but  to  none  but  mediocrities  would  it 
occur  to  criticize  war  from  every  point  of  view  or  even  from 
only  two. 

These  preliminary  remarks  are  essential  in  order  to  show 
in  what  sense  this  book  may  claim  to  be  impartial  or  ob- 
jective. I  have  endeavored  to  collect  the  material  as  impar- 
tially as  possible,  and  while  working  it  up  afterward  I  had 
always  one  main  conception  present  to  my  mind — the  con- 
ception of  humanity.     This  conception  can  also  be  objectively 

1  Cf .  what  Kant  has  said  about  the  analysis  of  the  Sublime  ( "Critique 
of  Pure  Reason,"  I,  If  23).     Cf.  also  §  153  of  this  present  work. 
2Grerman  philosopher,  1776-1841. — Translator. 


INTRODUCTION  xxv 

expressed  as  the  fact  that  there  is  only  one  human  race,  which 
can  be  proved  to  form  one  organism.  This,  however,  is  an- 
ticipating matters,  for  the  main  purpose  of  this  book  is  to 
prove  that  there  is  a  sound  logical  basis  for  the  conception  of 
humanity. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Introduction v 

THK  ORIGIN  OP  THIS  BOOK — Its  condemnatory  tone  as  regards 
(Jtimany — The  manifesto  to  the  civilized  world — German  truth, 
past  and  present — a  manifesto  to  Europeans — the  personal  Bense 
of   individual  responsibility. 

THK  POINT  OP  VIEW  OP  THIS  BOOK — War  as  a  natural  phe- 
nomenon  or   human   act. 

Chapter  I.     War  Instincts 3 

THE   IMPORTANCE   OP   INSTINCTS — War   instinct.^   versus   pacifism 

— the  value  of  instinct — advantages  and  disadvantages  of  instinct 

— man   as   master  of   his   instinct.s. 
TRIBAL   INSTINCTS — Man's  original  tendency  to  live  in  hordes. 
THE    DIFFERENCE    BETWEEN   MAN  AND  BEAST — The  peaceable- 

ness  of  animals — the  impossihility  of  war  without   property. 
THE    NATURAL    PRICE    OP    WAR — War    and   slavery — the    uses    of 

enslavement. 

Chapter  II.    War  and  the  Struggle  for  Life  ...     25 

THE   BASES   OP   WAR — Darwinism — the  fundamental   law   of   growtK 

and    the   limits   of   size— the   impassable   barrier. 
THE     STRUGGLE     FOR    ENERGY — Why    this    struggle    is    waged — 

.struggle  in  the  animal  world — human  struggle  on  animal  lines. 
THE    STRUGGLE   OF   MANKIND — Increase  of  vitality — the  utilization 

of  extraneous   energy — creative   struggle  and   war   of  e.xtermination. 
FREEDOM    AND   NATURAL  COMPULSION — Conformity  to  law  and 

unfettered   harmony — the  evolution  of  the  brain — the  autonomy  of 

the  brain — war  as  a  free  human  act. 

Chapter  III.     Selection  By  Means  of  War      .      .      .     6fi 

SELECTION  AND  EDUCATION — Positive  and  negative  selection — 
the  trend  of  selection — wise  and  foolish — the  effect  of  war  on  the 
development  of  intelligence — the  futility  of  wars  today — what  a 
war  of  e.xtermination   menus. 

THE  ALLFGED  TONIC  EFFECTS  OF  WAR — The  hardening  and  ener- 
vating efTects  of  war  and  peace — war  weariness — the  injury  done 
to  tlie  liraiii  by  war — the  influence  of  war  on  the  birth-rate — the 
reenforcement  of  the  sense  of   power. 

THE  SPECIFIC  EFFECTS  OF  WAR — Its  alleged  cruelty — man  as 
subject  Hud  object  of  warfare — killing  and  dying — bloodthirstiness 
— tht     brutalizing    effects    of    war. 

THE  UNIVERSAL  CHANGE  OF  ATTITUDE — The  enemy's  motives 
— defective  sense  of  responsibility — insults  and  libels — -training  to 
hate — training  to  lie- — PrancTireur  warfare — war  and  art. 

xxvii 


xxviii  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Chapter  IV.    The  Chosen  People 139 

THE  ADVANTAGE  NATIONS  ARE  ALLEGED  TO  DERIVE  FROM 
WAR — The  injury  to  the  world  in  general — the  advantages  of 
war  to  an  individual  nation — the  unprofitableness  of  war  today. 

NATIONAL  EXPANSION  OR  COLONIZATION— Necessity  for  and 
advantages  of  colonies — colonial  possessions  and  colonial  domiua 
tiou. 

WEAPONS  OP  LIFE  AND  WEAPONS  OF  DEATH— The  victor's 
empty  laurels — the  decay  of  worldwide  empires — the  economic 
effects  of  war — national  influence — the  sword  for  the  weak. 

Chapter  V.    How  War  Is  Being  Metamorphosed   .     .  169 

THE  DUSK  OF  THE  WAR  GODS — The  growth  of  armies— the  death 
agony  of  the  war  giant — defensive  warfare  and  lying. 

THE  HUMANIZING  OF  WAR — The  principle  of  humaneness — the 
tlieory  and  practice  of  noble  war — the  value  of  humanitarian  ef- 
fort. 

THE  COMPARATIVE  RETROGRADENESS  OF  WAR— Reasons  for 
this — what  are  the  facts  ? — the  mischief  of  overestimating  the  art 
of  war. 

WAR  AND  THE  SENSE  OF  SOLIDARITY — The  decline  of  comrade- 
ship— results  of  the  separation  between  officers  and  men 

Chapter  VI.     How  the  Army  has  Been  Transformed  214 

NATIONAL  AND  PROFESSIONAL  ARMIES — The  invincibility  of  a 
national  army — a  question  wrongly  worded — the  three  reasons  for 
the  introduction  of  professional  armies. 

DEFENSIVE  MILITIA  OR  AGGRESSIVE  ARMY — The  origin  and 
meaning  of  militia — the  rise  of  a  hireling  army  in  Germany — ;the 
rise  of  an  army  of  mercenaries  in  Prussia — the  1807  reorganiza- 
tion  committee — the   reaction   of   the  military   party. 

THE  PRUSSIAN  MILITIA — The  people's  militia — the  royal  militia — 
the  transformation  during  the  wars  of  liberation. 

MILITARISM  IN  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY — The  new  militia — • 
army  and  revolution — universal  military  service  in  Europe. 

Chapter  VII.     Wherein  Patriotism  Is  Rooted  .      .      .  250 

PATRIOTISM  CONSIDERED  AS  AN  INSTINCT — Inevitable  deca 
dence — the  commanding  position  of  patriotism- — our  love  for  our 
native  land — overcoming  our  love  of  our  native  soil — the  organic 
family  instinct — the  change  in  racial  instincts. 

THE  SOCIAL  ASPIRATIONS  OP  MANKIND— The  explanation  of 
public  spirit ness. 

Chapter  VIII.     Different  Species  of  Patriotism  .      .  264 

LOCAL  PATRIOTISM — Natural  Patriotism — true  and  false  patriotism 

DYNASTIC     OWNERSHIP — The     affection    of    subjects — Prusso-German 
and  Austro  German — the  free  association  of  states. 

RACE  PATRIOTISM — The  problem  of  race — the  value  of  race  purity 
— historical  and  linguistic  races — physical  racial  characteristics — 
the  mixture  of  races  in  Germany — Germans  and  Teutons — the  Eu- 
ropean race. 

CIVILIZATION  AND  PATRIOTISM — The  multiplicity  of  combina- 
tions— states  within  a  state — language  as  a  formative  element  of 
states — the  ideal  of  European  patriotism. 


CONTENTS  xxix 

PAGE 

Chapter  IX.    Unjustifiable  Chauvinism     ....  302 

SELFISHNESS  AND  LOVE — Love  of  one's  country  not  real  love. 
MASS       SUGGESTION — Mass  feeling       among       animals — mass  feeling 
among    men. 

THE  CONDITIONS  AND  CONSEQUENCES  OF  CHAUVINISM — 
There  is  no  demarcation  between  patriotism  and  chauvinism — war 
as   a   necessary  condition — self  praise  and   fear. 

THE  ANTITHESIS  BETWEEN  CIVILIZATION  AND  CHAUVINISM 
— Civilization  as  an  organism — the  internationalism  of  civilization 
- — the  effect  of  chauvinism  upon  civilization  in  general — the  special 
effect   of   war. 

Chapter  X.    The  Legitimate  Individualism  of  Nations  334 

THE  CONCEPTION  OF  PERSONALITY— The  right  to  individuality— 
the  restriction  of  personality — the  primacy  of  the  reason — nations 
as   individual   units. 

THE  INDIVIDUAL  QUALITIES  OP  NATIONS— The  excellences  of  in 
dividual   nations — the   excellences  of  their  defects. 

THE  PECULIAR  QUALITY  OP  THE  GERMAN  SPIRIT— German 
civilization — originality — the  period  of  German  greatness — German 
adaptability — overstraining  of  adaptability. 

GERMAN  HUMANITY  AND  GERMAN  inLITARISM— What  is  mili- 
tarism— German  love  of  lilierty — three  reasons  why  German  liberty 
has  taken  a  wrong  turn — "the  absolute" — bethink  yourself  1 

Chapter  XI.    Altruism        379 

OVERCOMING  PESSIMISM — Germany's  mission — the  new  empire — 
natural  right — right  and  cosmopolitanism. 

RIGHT  AND  WAR— The  law  of  nations — the  right  of  reprisals — the 
right  of  the  stronger — evolution  and  revolution— war  and  the 
judgment   of   God. 

SOME  PRELIMINARY  REFLECTIONS  ON  ALTRUISM— Natural 
law  and  purpose — inborn  rights — the  right  to  war — the  law  of  the 
organism. 

THE  HISTORY  OP  ALTRUISM — The  twofold  basis  of  altruism— the 
development  of  the  "English"  doctrine  of  utilitarianism — the  evolu- 
tion of  Kantian  morality — the  abuse  of  Kant's  doctrine — a  change 
of  part,s  and  a  comedy  in  consequence — the  inadequacy  of  both  basea 
of   morality. 


PART  II 

HOW  WAR  MAY  BE  ABOLISHED 

Chapter  XII.     The  Evolution   of    the    Idea    of   the 

World  as  an  Organism 431 

THE  HELI>ENIC  PERIOD— The  first  presentiments  of  there  being  a 
soul  in  this  world — the  Post'Socratics. 

THE  CHRISTIAN  ERA — The  scholastic  victory  over  primitive  Chris- 
tendom— Renaissance  and  reaction. 

THE  MODERN  PERIOD — Its  forerunners — modern  empiricism. 


XXX  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Chapter  XIII.     The  World  as  an  Organism      .     .     ,  447 

THE  PHYSICAL  REASON  FOR  MANKIND  FORMING  AN  ORGAN- 
ISM— Hypotheses  and  facts — the  continuity  of  germ  plasm — earthly 
love  makes  heavenly  love  possible. 

THE  APPROACHING  MUTATION  OF  WAR — The  meaning  of  muta- 
tion— the  mother  of  'wa.r  instincts. 

THE  UNITY  OF  MANKIND  AS  REGARDS  BOTH  TIME  AND 
SPACE — Man's  connections  from  the  point  of  \iew  of  time — man's 
connections  in  regard  to  space. 

THE  AGE  'WIIEN  MANY  SHALL  GO  TO  AND  PRO"— Humanity 
and  intercommunication — speech  as  a  means  of  intercommunication 
— the  results  of  intercommunication — the  connection  between  inter- 
communication and  the  greatness  of  countries — premature  attempts 
to  attain  a  universal  monarchy. 

Chapter  XIV.     The  Transformation  in  Human  Judg- 
ment       478 

THE  PERIODICITY  OF  OPINIONS — Contradictory  views — the  idea  of 
evolution  as  the  solution  of  the  difficulty — love  of  war,  ancient  and 
modern. 

THE  VOICE  OF  NATIONS — The  antique — more  recent  times — the 
transition  to  modern  times — soldiers  and  diplomatists. 

WAR  POETRY — Dramatic  war  poetry — lyric  poetry — the  three  Ger- 
man poets  of  war — the  poet  and  liberty. 

MODERN  DELIGHT  IN  WAR — The  renascence  of  delight  in  war — 
Moltke  and  his  school — instances  from  the  writings  of  war  advo- 
cates. 

Chapter  XV.     War  and  Religion 528 

RELIGION  AND  LOA^E  OF  PEACE — The  older  religions — the  old 
Testament  a  Jewish  National  Book — the  brotherhood  of  man. 

THE  DILUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY — The  practical  compromise  be- 
tween Christian  doctrine  and  war — the  theoretical  compromise  of 
the  middle  ages — the  theoretical  compromise  ot  modern  times. 

THE  WATERING  DOWN  OF  KANT  AND  BUDDHA — The  misuse  of 
Kant — the  compromise  of  Buddhism. 

THE  NEW  RELIGION — The  meaning  of  every  religion — the  religion  of 
humanity — uniformity  of  moral  law. 


THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 


THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 


CHAPTER  I 

War  Instincts 
1. — the  importance  of  instincts 

§  7. —  War  Instincts  Versus  Pacifism 

For  thousands  of  years  past  war  has  been  hateful.  No 
thoughtful  person  has  ever  yet  had  anything  good  to  say  for  it ; 
at  any  rate,  not  if  he  thought  fit  to  take  the  responsibility  for 
his  ideas  to  the  extent  of  committing  them  to  writing.  And 
now  almost  every  one  adores  and  glorifies  war;  at  all  events, 
they  did  so  in  Germany  at  the  beginning  of  this  present  war. 
There  is  clearly  something  wrong  about  this.  It  is  unlikely 
that  the  German  should  suddenly  have  revolutionized  his  in- 
stincts, thus  creating  a  new  variety  of  human  being;  and 
hence  it  would  simply  seem  as  if  either  educated  men  of  all 
times  or  men  of  to-day  had  been  mistaken.  In  reality  both 
were  mistaken.  Chaste  ears  cannot  endure  the  mention  of 
what  chaste  hearts  cannot  dispense  with ;  but  reason  never  will 
and  never  can  justify  war,  and  all  attempts  of  modern  men 
to  justify  it  have  failed  miserably.  The  ancients  knew  that 
war  could  not  be  justified,  and  therefore  they  cursed  it ;  but 
they  did  not  realize  how  strong  is  the  war  instinct  of  man, 
which  is  more  deeply  ingrained  in  him  than  any  kind  of 
reason.  The  moderns  have  had  practical  experience  of  this — 
an  experience  which  filled  them  sometimes  with  horror  and 
sometimes  with  admiration ;  but  they  again  are  mistaken  in 

3 


4  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

believing  that  because  instinct  is  so  strong  in  all  of  us,  there- 
fore it  is  commendable. 

In  even  the  sincerest  opponents  of  war  there  is  a  certain 
hankering  after  war.  A  primeval  impulse,  a  something  remi- 
niscent of  the  most  secret  wellsprings  of  human  strength,  at- 
taches us  to  it.  Even  the  best  of  the  Germans,  for  instance, 
is  at  heart  and  always  has  been  mildly  proud  of  having  made 
his  first  appearance  in  history  as  the  conqueror  and  destroyer 
of  the  Roman  Empire,  which  in  itself  does  not  mean  much, 
since  all  nations  first  entered  their  country  as  conquerors,  and 
even  the  Jews,  assuredly  not  a  warlike  people,  first  had  to 
conquer  Canaan. 

Now,  the  fact  remains  that  we  still  have  these  reminiscences, 
and  although  we  may  be  otherwise  human,  yet  there  is  in  all 
of  us  a  "tiny  fragment  of  earth,"  which  we  in  Germany  quite 
rightly  describe  as  "furor  teutonicus."  In  short,  whoever 
becomes  involved  in  a  war  is  always  dazzled  by  the  magnificent 
aspect  of  so  gigantic  an  event.  Delight  in  war,  like  an  oc- 
cult instinct,  is  in  a  nation's  very  blood,  and  when  the  time 
comes,  it  awakes  and  manifests  itself.  In  time  of  peace  such 
intoxication  must  be  artificially  created,  which  in  the  case  of 
the  Bavarian  can  be  done  by  means  of  beer,  and  be  becomes 
rowdy.  An  English  sailor  uses  his  fists  after  drinking  enough 
whisky,  the  Russian  in  the  joys  of  vodka  beats  himself  or,  at 
any  rate,  his  wife,  and  the  southern  Frenchman  or  Italian, 
when  wine  has  gone  to  his  head,  seizes  his  knife. 

It  is  when  nations  are  overcome  by  the  intoxication  of  war 
that  rowdiness,  blows,  and  the  use  of  fists  and  knives  become 
general.  Then  the  French  are  no  longer  ' '  decadent  praters, ' ' 
the  Britons  as  "passive  as  cows,"  the  Russians  "sickly 
dreamers, ' '  the  Italians  ' '  gambling  Lovelaces, ' '  or  the  Germans 
' '  idealists  forever  droning  about  humanity. ' '  One  and  all  be- 
come men  of  action,  aflame  and  afire  for  war;  and  it  is  pre- 
cisely the  fact  that  the  war  fever  has  infected  them  all  which 
proves  that  it  is  an  instinct  innate  in  the  human  race,  ever 
ready  to  break  out. 


WAR  INSTINCTS  5 

Because  delight  in  war  seemed  an  instinct  wholly  uncon- 
nected with  the  powers  of  reflection,  it  was  considered  sacred ; 
"for,"  we  were  told,  "instincts  are  man's  most  valuable  pos- 
session, and  if  a  nation  once  loses  its  right  instincts  and  fol- 
lows wrong  ones,  it  is  lost."  Now,  the  second  part  of  this 
sentence  contradicts  the  first,  for  if  there  are  right  and  wrong 
instincts,  then  we  must  not  obey  every  instinct  indiscrim- 
inately, and  in  each  individual  case  we  must  consult  our  rea- 
son as  to  what  we  ought  to  do ;  in  other  words,  as  to  whether 
in  this  instance  the  impulse  is  good  or  bad.  But  if,  after  all, 
reason  is  to  have  the  last  word,  it  might  be  thought  that  the 
whole  question  of  instinct  had  no  practical  bearing  upon  the 
lives  of  us  human  beings.  This,  however,  is  by  no  means  the 
ease.  Man's  instincts  are  of  even  more  importance  in  de- 
termining his  conduct  than  we  have  been  accustomed  to  think. 
Reason,  it  is  true,  can  decide  and  direct  us;  it  can  develop 
one  instinct  and  suppress  another :  but  strength  to  take  action 
proceeds  from  a  whole  series  of  unconscious  impulses.  And 
even  if  we  have  a  thousand  times  admitted  warlike  instincts 
to  be  wrong,  we  shall  never  get  the  better  of  them  unless  we 
replace  them  by  other  and  pacific  instincts. 

In  Part  III  of  this  book  I  shall  show  that  the  instinct  of  love 
is  more  powerful  than  that  of  hate,  but  my  present  purpose 
is  to  set  forth  what,  after  all,  au  instinct  really  is,  and  to 
trace  the  origin  of  martial  instincts. 

§  8. — The  Value  of  Instinct 

Liebmann  ^  once  pregnantly  observed  that  the  conception 
of  i)istinct  is  like  a  railway  junction:  everything  we  know 
about  psychology  runs  into  it.  Without  analyzing  instincts, 
indeed,  it  is  impossible  either  to  understand  the  human  soul 
or  rightly  to  estimate  man's  passion  for  war. 

The  instincts  which  we  first  noticed  were  just  the  most 
marvelous,  the  most  complex,  and  consequents  the  most  dif- 
ficult to  understand.     Hence  imperfect  knowledge  has  gradu- 

1  Otto  Liebmann,  German  philosopher,  born  1840. — TranBlator. 


6  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

ally  enveloped  instinct  with  a  veil  of  mystery.  The  proper 
way  to  arrive  at  a  right  comprehension  of  instincts,  however, 
is  to  begin  with  the  simplest.  And  here  may  I  be  permitted 
to  make  a  slight  digression?  We  call  an  act  instinctive  which 
an  animal  performs  unconsciously  and  with  mechanical  regu- 
larit}'.  Such  acts,  for  instance,  are  the  sucking  movements 
of  a  newborn  infant  and  the  closing  of  the  ej'elids  when  the 
eye  is  threatened  with  injury.  Now,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  in 
the  immense  majority  of  instinctive  acts  there  is  really  an 
astonishing  element  of  expediency  far  beyond  the  degree  of 
understanding  which  can  possibly  be  possessed  by  the  animals 
performing  them.  Hence  it  might  be  thought  that  an  in- 
stinct must  of  necessity  serve  some  useful  purpose.  Men 
noted  how  a  bird,  which  had  never  seen  a  nest  built,  yet  car- 
ried out  this  difficult  work  without  any  one  to  teach  it,  lining 
the  nest  warmly  at  the  proper  season  for  its  nestlings,  of 
whose  future  existence  it  could  nevertheless  hardly  have  any 
foreboding.  They  noticed  how  migratory  birds  unerringly 
wended  their  way  southward  at  the  proper  season,  and  how 
the  bee  built  itself  six-cornered  cells  long  before  modern 
statics  had  shown  that  of  all  possible  constructions  these  were 
the  ones  best  suited  to  the  bees'  purpose.  The  instinct  of 
animals  thus  surpasses  all  human  intelligence ;  it  is  truer,  less 
liable  to  err,  and  apparently  can  see  what  is  to  come,  for 
which  reason  Jean  Paul  called  it  the  "sense  of  the  future." 

This  conception,  which,  as  will  be  shown,  is  a  wrong  one, 
gave  rise  to  the  opinion,  which  since  Rousseau's  time  has  be- 
come popular,  that  all  that  is  necessary  is  to  recognize  in- 
stincts and  follow  them ;  then  everything  would  go  right  of 
itself.  Even  instincts,  however,  can  go  wrong,  as  a  little  re- 
flection will  show.  Thus,  in  the  lowest  animals  all  acts  take 
place  absolutely  automatically.  Just  as  the  light  which  strikes 
a  stone  expands  it,  and  does  so  forcibly  and  always  in  the 
same  way,  similarly  when  it  strikes  certain  low  forms  of  life 
such  as  bacteria,  it  forces  them  toward  the  light  (positive 
heliotropism,  as  it  is  called)  or  away  from  the  light  (negative 


WAR  INSTINCTS  7 

heliotropism).  Similarly  in  such  low  forms  of  life  all  sorts 
of  influences  produce  definite,  forcible  reactions,  which  in 
themselves  merely  obey  certain  laws,  and  are  neither  expedient 
nor  inexpedient.  If,  however,  they  are  injurious  to  the  par- 
ticular animal  in  question,  it  becomes  extinct.  Hence  it  hap- 
pens quite  naturally  that  the  only  species  of  animals  which 
have  survived  were  so  constructed  that  they  were  led  to  do 
what  was  good  for  them  and  preserved  from  what  was  bad 
for  them.  The  complex  instincts  of  tlie  hi<iher  animals  arose 
in  precisely  similar  fashion,  and  no  one  need  wonder  at  their 
expediency.  Now,  certain  of  these  reactions  are  obviously  of 
such  importance  for  the  preservation  of  life  that  they  must 
occur  in  all  animals  without  exception.  For  example,  it  is 
wholly  impossible  that  any  animal  whose  instinct  it  was  to 
eat  poisonous  substances  could  exist ;  and  it  is  equally  obvious 
that  the  only  protoplasms  and,  in  course  of  evolution,  the 
only  animals  that  have  come  into  existence  are  those  which 
absorb  substances  in  themselves  nourishing,  and  involuntarily 
avoid  substances  that  for  them  are  poisonous.  Hence  we 
must  not  be  surprised  that  all  animals  should  know  how  to 
avoid  plants  poisonous  for  them. 

§  9. — Advantages  and  Disadva7itages  of  Instincts 
Despite  all  this,  however,  if  one  of  these  "animals  with 
true  instincts"  is  transferred  from  its  accustomed  surround- 
ings to  a  region  in  which  plants  unfamiliar  to  it  occur,  it 
frequently  happens  that  it  eats  unwholesome  plants  and  con- 
sequently perishes.  Thus  in  a  different  environment  a  "true 
instinct"  may  become  false.  Such  occurrences  are  far  from 
rare  in  nature.  For  instance,  the  instinct  of  the  moth  to  fly 
into  the  candle  or  lamp,  or  that  of  the  female  tlirush  to  feed 
the  young  cuckoo  until  it  pushes  her  own  nestlings  out  of  the 
nest,  are  harmful,  though  they  were  not  always  so.  The  moth 
first  began  struggling  to  get  to  the  brightness  at  a  time  when 
there  were  no  lamps,  and  its  flight  toward  the  sun  and  up- 
ward did  it  no  harm,  but,  on  the  contrary,  good.     To  feed  the 


8  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

young  is  an  instinct  without  which  it  is  inconceivable  that 
there  could  ever  have  been  any  birds ;  and  the  fact  that  from 
time  to  time  the  cuckoo  lays  her  eggs  in  the  thrush 's  nest  can- 
not and  ought  not  to  alter  the  latter 's  instinct. 

Hence  in  nature,  besides  many  valuable  instincts,  there  are 
also  many  harmful  ones;  and  the  mere  fact  that  an  act  was 
performed  instinctively  is  in  itself  no  proof  that  in  the  par- 
ticular circumstances  it  was  useful.  It  may  probably  be 
safelj^  concluded,  however,  that  at  the  time  when  the  instinct 
arose  it  was  useful ;  and  if  man  has  warlike  instincts,  this  is  a 
proof  that  it  was  necessary  to  wage  war,  but  no  argument 
whatever  as  to  its  still  being  necessary.  For,  as  is  proved  by 
the  case  of  the  moth  flying  toward  the  light,  instincts  are 
uncommonly  conservative,  and  persist  long  after  the  condi- 
tions which  produced  thera  have  ceased  to  exist;  and  there 
are  countless  instances  of  such  "rudimentary  instincts." 

Take  the  case  of  the  dog.  He  was  once  an  arrant  thief, 
though  he  has  ceased  to  be  so  more  quickly  than  his  master; 
so  that  it  would  seem  as  if  the  teachings  of  the  whip  went 
home  more  than  those  of  morality.  Be  that  as  it  may,  how- 
ever, it  was  in  the  predatory  period  of  his  existence  that  the 
dog  acquired  the  habit  of  burying  his  excrements,  a  habit 
which  in  the  case  of  wolves  is  often  praised  as  testifying  to 
great  intelligence.  At  a  time  when  the  thief  on  his  nocturnal 
rambles  desired  to  make  it  as  difficult  as  possible  to  scent  him, 
there  was  a  very  good  reason  for  this  habit.  As  the  dog,  how- 
ever, did  not  then  realize  that  this  was  so,  he  has  preserved 
this  unconscious  habit  even  to  this  day,  despite  the  fact  of 
his  present  occupation  being  much  more  peaceful;  and  it  is 
ridiculous  to  see  our  street  dogs  scratching  for  a  time  with 
their  hind  legs  on  the  asphalt  pavement  of  some  modern  town 
after  relieving  nature.  Here  is  an  instance  of  a  senseless, 
purposeless  instinct.  Now,  it  must  not  be  thought  that  human 
beings  had  no  rudimentary  instincts.  When  a  monkey  of  old 
set  upon  his  enemy,  he  did  what  very  many  animals  do :  he 
first  showed  him  his  means  of  defense  in  order  to  strike  terror 


WAR  INSTINCTS  9 

into  him.  Raising  his  upper  lip,  he  exposed  to  view  his  pow- 
erful incisors,  and  clenched  his  fist  threateningly.  Similarly, 
whenever  we  civilized  Europeans,  who  have  wholly  ceased  to 
bite  and  almost  ceased  to  make  any  use  of  our  fists,  get  into 
a  passion,  we  raise  the  upper  lip  and  clench  the  fist  precisely 
as  did  our  ancestor,  the  old  forest-dwelling  monkey. 

Thus,  no  instinct  is  useful  in  itself,  its  existence  being  justi- 
fied only  so  long  as  the  conditions  which  gave  rise  to  it  remain 
unchanged.  Just  as  an  animal  which  in  the  course  of  cen- 
turies wanders  farther  north  gradually  acquires  a  thicker  coat, 
even  so  must  it  adopt  other  habits  and  other  instincts. 

§  10. — Man  as  Master  of  His  Instincts 

What  has  just  been  said  of  animals  applies  more  to  us  hu- 
man beings,  endowed  as  we  are  with  the  power  of  changing 
our  conditions  by  our  own  acts  to  an  incomparably  greater 
extent  than  any  animal;  and  for  this  wery  reason  it  is  our 
duty  as  far  as  possible  to  suit  our  habits  to  these  altered  con- 
ditions of  life.  This  is  no  easy  matter,  for,  as  I  have  said, 
instincts  are  conservative  and  tenacious.  Thus,  since  the  in- 
vention of  knives  we  no  longer  use  our  teeth  upon  our  ene- 
mies, though  throughout  all  the  centuries  we  have  never  ceased 
to  show  them  our  teeth.  When  we  realized  how  much  there 
was  to  be  gained  from  an  organization  of  the  world,  then  was 
the  time  to  have  subdued  our  once  useful  instinct  for  war.  I  do 
not  mean  this  as  a  reproach  to  a  great  many  persons,  because 
in  their  case  this  process  is  a  very  slow  one ;  but  human  beings 
who  still  continue  enthusiastically  to  abandon  themselves  to 
their  lust  for  war  always  involuntarily  make  me  think  I  see 
a  dog  on  the  asphalt.  No  one  is  readier  than  I  am  to  admit, 
what  ought  to  be  admitted,  that  instincts  are  important  to 
man,  more  important  than  many  intelligently  performed  ac- 
tions. After  all,  everything  most  essential  to  life  is  rightly 
removed  from  the  domain  of  understanding,  which  is  easily 
deceived.  We  are,  it  is  true,  aware  of  hunger  and  thirst,  the 
sexual  impulse  and  maternal  love,  but  all  are  regulated  by 


10  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

instincts ;  and  what  is  still  more  important,  the  beating  of  the 
heart,  respiration,  and  digestion  proceed  safely  and  surely 
without  our  being  aware  thereof. 

The  understanding  may  err,  but  never  instinct ;  at  any  rate, 
not  if  its  province  be  restricted  to  things  which,  being  part 
and  parcel  of  the  very  physical  constitution  of  man,  are  vir- 
tually unchangeable.  Unjustifiable  generalization  from  this, 
however,  has  induced  many  to  deny  any  real  progress  in  the 
world.  The  bacterium,  they  argue,  always  acts  rightly;  man 
mostly  wrongly.  Hence  what  has  been  the  use  of  the  whole 
cycle  of  evolution  from  the  primitive  cell  to  the  human  being? 
This  point  of  view,  however,  is  based,  I  should  like  to'say  for- 
tunately, upon  imperfect  knowledge;  for  although  instinct  is 
indeed  infallible,  which  is  an  advantage,  it  is  also  blind  and 
incapable  of  learning,  and  this  is  its  doom.  Whenever  an 
animal  comes  into  new  surroundings  with  instincts  unsuited 
thereto,  it  still  continues  doing  what  according  to  its  nature 
is  right;  but  in  so  doing  it  dies  out.  Thus  one  species  of 
animal  after  another  has  died  out  because  it  cannot  change. 
And  is  man  also  to  die  out  because  he  will  not  change? 
Man,  moreover,  can  change.  He  is  not  like  a  bacterium,  al- 
ways obliged  to  do  what  is  "in  accordance  with  his  nature." 
IMan  is  able  to  act  differently,  and,  being  capable  of  perpetual 
modification,  to  adapt  himself  to  circumstances.  Man  alone, 
in  short,  can  achieve  the  impossible  in  that  he  can  choose,  in 
doing  which,  of  course,  he  may  err.  But  this  curse  of  liability 
to  error  is  the  necessary  result  of  liberty  and  the  direct  out- 
come of  the  blessed  capacity  for  change,  in  other  words,  for 
learning. 

Verily  the  old  Bible  is  wiser  than  the  panegyrists  of  instinct 
when  it  makes  man  fall  at  the  very  outset  of  creation ;  for 
what  constitutes  a  moral  human  being  is  precisely  his  being 
free  to  "sin"  or  "to  do  right."  As  long  as  man  struggles,  so 
long  must  he  err;  or,  to  put  it  the  other  way,  were  there  no 
error,  there  would  be  no  possibility  of  struggle. 

For  thousands  of  years  past  our  ideal  has  been  a  sober, 


WAR  INSTINCTS  11 

self-controlled  human  race.  Nevertheless,  we  have  still  not 
been  able  to  rid  ourselves  of  physical  instincts  such  as  raising 
the  upper  lip,  while  the  more  complex  mental  instincts  are 
still  more  difficult  to  break  with,  it  being  in  man's  verj^  nature 
to  consider  the  old  as  venerable ;  and  this  traditional  over- 
estimation  of  everything  old  can  ultimately  be  traced  back  to 
hereditary  instincts  which  we  have  unconsciously  come  to  re- 
vere. Such  instincts  in  themselves  have  a  tendency  to  per- 
sist, and  since  we  do  not  clearly  realize  this,  but  merely  vaguely 
suspect  it,  we  imagine  that  by  religiously  adhering  to  every- 
thing old  we  are  preserving  what  is  of  permanent  value. 
This  imperfect  knowledge  explains  why  we  think  it  nobler 
and  more  honorable  to  be  out  of  date,  and  consequently  war- 
like, than  up  to  date  and  peaceful. 

Enough  has  now  been  said,  I  think,  to  show  that  the  com- 
parative value  of  warlike  instincts  can  be  correctly  estimated 
only  if  it  be  known  what  conditions  originally  gave  rise  to 
bellicosity.  Otherwise  it  is  not  possible  for  any  one  to  decide 
whether  these  conditions  still  persist;  that  is  to  say,  whether 
the  war  instinct  still  serves  any  purpose,  or  whether,  like  our 
rudimentary  appendix,  once  also  very  important,  it  is  now 
merely  a  cause  of  disease. 

2. — TRIBATi    INSTINCTS 

§  11. — Man's  Original  Tendency  to  Live  in  Hordes 

We  may  begin  by  observing  that  warlike  instincts  are  not 
necessary  or  even  characteristic  attributes  of  the  human  race. 
On  the  contrary,  they  rather  tend  to  prove  that  the  conception 
of  humanity  has  become  debased,  inasmuch  as  man,  according 
to  his  true  nature,  must  necessarily  have  been  a  peaceful  and 
social  animal.  This,  indeed,  may  be  inferred  from  the  very 
anatomy  of  man,  who,  as  every  one  is  aware,  is  one  of  the 
mast  defenseless  creatures  ever  known  to  science,  possessing 
neither  horns  nor  fangs,  claws  nor  hoofs,  hard  ouler  shell  nor 
poison    glands;    so    that    his    equally    defenseless    ancestors, 


12  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

monkeys,  could  survive  only  owing  to  their  being,  at  any 
rate,  somewhat  protected  by  dwelling  in  the  swaying  branches 
of  trees.  A  climbing  animal,  however,  could  not  develop  into 
a  human  being,  walking  upright,  except  by  coming  down 
from  the  trees  and  walking  about  the  ground  until  it  acquired 
a  foot. 

Now,  the  foot  being  henceforth  used  for  purposes  of  loco- 
motion, the  hand  was  free.  The  earliest  vertebrate  animals — 
for  instance,  the  frog — already  possessed  this  primitive  live- 
fingered  hand,  which,  however,  in  the  case  of  all  animals 
became  converted — or,  if  the  word  be  preferred,  perfected — 
into  a  special  organ,  usually  either  a  claw  or  a  hoof  for  de- 
fensive purposes.  Only  in  the  case  of  the  defenseless  monkeys 
did  it  remain  a  hand  and  acquire  skill  in  tree-climbing.  The 
hand,  in  its  origin  peaceful,  since  it  could  neither  strike  nor 
scratch,  but  merely  grasp  and  seize,^  was  superfluous  as  an 
aid  to  locomotion  on  the  ground,  and  thus  became  free  and 
able  to  lay  hold  of  something  besides  trees.  Consequently  it 
clenched  and  laid  hold  of  tools,  thus  becoming  the  means  and 
symbol  of  all  man 's  future  greatness. 

What  is  even  more  important,  however,  is  that  had  man 
been  a  solitary  animal  when  he  first  attempted  to  quit  the  pro- 
tecting branches  of  the  tree-tops,  he  would  never  have  been 
able  to  do  anything  of  the  kind,  as  he  would  infallibly  have 
been  exterminated  by  his  very  much  stronger-armed  euemfes. 
The  fact  that  he  nevertheless  did  take  this  decisive  step,  as  a 
result  of  which  he  conquered  the  world,  proves  that  even  then 
he  must  have  possessed  some  means  of  defense ;  and  as  he  did 
not  find  the  stone  which  he  used  as  an  ax  until  he  descended 
to  earth,  his  only  "powerful  means  of  defense"  must  have 
been  the  fact  that  weak  persons  become  strong  by  uniting  to 
help  one  another.  Man,  in  short,  could  conquer  only  because 
he  was  a  social  being. 

Not  a  single  serious  argument  can  be  urged  against  the 

1  Deep  significance,  into  which  it  is  impossible  to  enter  in  detail  here, 
is  contained  in  the  fact  that  the  expression  "grasp"  in  the  sense  of 


WAR  INSTINCTS  13 

social  origin  of  the  human  race.  The  sole  objection  of  which 
I  know  is  "that  it  is  just  the  anthropoids  (the  so-called  human 
monkeys,  the  ourang-outangs,  chimpanzees,  and  gorillas) 
which  live  only  in  family  and  not  in  social  communities. "  But 
this  is  based  on  the  long-disproved  theory,  wrongly  ascribed  to 
Darwin,  that  man  is  descended  from  these  monkeys.  We 
know  that  the  anthropoids  are  only  our  cousins,  and  that  we 
must  seek  our  direct  ancestors  in  very  much  lower  monkeys. 
Now,  all  these  lower  monkeys  live  in  hordes;  and  how  they 
club  together  to  rob  plantations,  at  the  same  time  setting  some 
of  their  number  on  watch,  and  how  they  perform  other  tasks 
such  as  removing  heavy  stones,  in  order  to  get  at  the  worms 
beneath,  are  matters  of  common  knowledge.  Our  ancestors, 
therefore,  were  social  animals  living  in  hordes  or  nomadic 
tribes,  and  we  were  social  beings  long  before  that  family  life 
began,  to  which  persons  blinded  by  the  traditional  saeredness 
of  the  family  formerly  endeavored  to  trace  back  our  social 
and  government  communities.  Were  this  the  case,  then  man  s 
deep-seated  social  aspirations  would  indeed  be  of  secondary 
importance.  It  is  not  so,  however,  for  man  did  not  voluntarily 
unite  to  form  any  community  (the  family  first,  for  instance, 
then  the  tribe,  then  a  class,  then  a  community,  and  so  on)  ; 
but  it  was  the  primeval  community  which  made  the  evolution 
of  man  possible. 

In  reality,  the  lowest  peoples,  such  as  Bushmen,  Tierra  del 
Fuegans,  Eskimos,  Andaman  Islanders,  and  whatever  their 
names  may  be,  always  live  in  nomadic  tribes  or  hordes  even 
when  they  have  still  no  tendency  to  form  families.  Similarly 
all  their  habits  are  directly  traceable  to  tribal  instincts.  For 
instance,  the  chattering  and  grimacing  of  savages,  repeatedly 
described  by  travelers,  are  the  most  vivid  reminder  of  the 
behavior  of  animals  that  live  in  hordes,  such  as  monkeys, 
and  of  certain  birds  that  go  in  flocks,  such  as  parrots.  Nat- 
urally, nothing  of  the  sort  is  ever  observable  in  the  case  of 

thoroughly  understand  comes  from  the  use  of  the  hand,  just  as  does  the 
word  apprcndere  ( learn )   of  the  Romance  languages. 


14  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

races  originally  living  solitary  lives.  Savages  in  general  are 
extraordinarily  gregarious,  and  for  them  solitude  almost 
always  portends  mental  and  physical  ruin,  just  as  solitary 
confinement  is  still  one  of  the  severest  punishments  for  the 
European,  no  matter  how  fertile  may  be  his  mind.^  The 
vanity  of  savages  and  their  capacity  for  imitation  also  clearly 
and  certainly  are  due  to  their  having  originally  lived  together 
in  communities;  for  to  whom  is  the  solitary  person  to 
*'show  off,"  whom  is  he  to  imitate,  and  with  whom  is  he  to 
chatter  ? 

How  far,  moreover,  it  is  possible  to  trace  back  this  tribal 
nature  and  the  habits  arising  therefrom  in  the  gradations  of 
the  human  race  is  shown,  for  example,  by  Le  Moustier  's  skele- 
ton of  primeval  man — a  skeleton  which,  according  to  Klaatsch, 
exhibits  signs  of  having  received  most  careful  burial.  Now, 
as  might  be  expected,  we  find  all  these  primitive  characteristics 
in  children,  for,  after  all,  we  know  that  every  person  must 
pass  through  the  various  stages  of  development  that  his  fore- 
fathers underwent.  The  first  impulses  of  a  child's  mind,  in 
fact,  find  expression  in  vanity,  desire  to  imitate,  and  chatter- 
ing or  babbling. 

Perhaps  the  most  decisive  proof  of  man's  originally  tribal 
nature,  however,  is  speech.  No  one  doubts  or  can  doubt  that 
a  human  being  without  speech  is  no  human  being,  and  hence 
that  the  capacity  for  speech,  at  any  rate,  was  acquired  not 
later  than  the  period  when  man  became  man,  and  probably 
earlier.  Now%  there  is  absolutely  no  need  to  insist  on  the 
self-evident  fact  that  speech  could  never  arise  in  the  case  of 
beings  living  alone,  but  only  from  life  in  common;  and  it  is 
only  in  the  case  of  social  creatures,  such  as  parrots,  frogs, 
ducks,  hens,  dogs,  horses,  seals,  and  cows,  that  we  find  speech 
or  capacity  for  modulating  the  sounds  uttered.  On  the  other 
hand,  all  creatures  of  solitary  habits,  even  when,  like  birds 
of  prey,  cats,  and  whales,  they  have  comparatively  highly  de- 

1  These  words  were,  I  think,  written  while  the  author  was  in  solitary 
confinement. — Translator. 


WAR  INSTINCTS  15 

veloped  brains,  are  mute  and  speechless,  or  at  most  can  utter 
only  love  sounds,  such  as  the  mewing  of  a  cat,  or  sounds  to 
alarm  their  enemies,  such  as  the  lion's  roar.  In  other  words, 
they  never  utter  sounds  save  when  they  enter  into  some  sort  of 
relations  with  creatures  of  their  own  kind,  which  they  do 
when  in  love  or  at  war  with  them.  Speech  presupposes  re- 
lations of  some  kind,  and  the  fact  that  man  speaks  proves  that 
these  relations  have  existed  from  all  time. 

Man,  as  even  Aristotle  knew,  is  from  his  very  nature  a  social 
animal.  Universal  brotherhood  among  men  is  older  and  more 
primitive  than  all  combat,  which  was  not  introduced  among 
men  until  later. 

3. — THE   DIFFERENCE    BETWEEN    MAN    AND    BEAST 

§  12. — The  Peaceahleness  of  Animals 

When  a  wolf  attacks  a  sheep,  or  a  lion  a  gazelle,  neither  wolf 
nor  lion  is  exposed  to  any  danger.  Similarly  beasts  of  prey 
in  general  do  not  become  dangerous  to  their  pursuers  save  in 
exceptional  cases.  If,  however,  an  animal  attacks  one  of  its 
own  kind,  there  is  always  a  possibility  that  the  aggressor  may 
be  overcome  by  the  almost  equally  powerful  opponent.  For  a 
creature  to  begin  to  tackle  one  of  its  own  kind  i§  thus  no 
light  task;  and  as  every  animal  instinctively  avoids  pain,  it 
is  not  surprising  that  wars  or  combats  between  animals  of 
the  same  kind  should  be  of  such  extreme  rarity  that  it  may 
almost  be  said  that  war,  like  so  much  else,  is  a  human  invention. 
The  argument  in  favor  of  this  is  the  hypothesis,  first  sub- 
mitted by  the  Englishman  Pye-Smith,^  that  ri<iht-handedness, 
which  occurs  only  in  human  beings,  is  due  to  warlike  habits. 
It  is  the  right  arm  which  is  used  to  fight  with,  in  order  that 
the  left  arm  "may  be  used  to  protect  the  left  side,  in  which 
the  quickened  heartbeats  were  visible." 

1  "On  Lefthandedneflfl,"  by  Dr.  Philip  Henry  Pye-Smith.  Guy's  Hos- 
pital Reports,  III  Series.  Vol.  XVI,  p.  141.  Cf.  also  Gaupp,  "Un 
Piiglithandedness":  Jena,  1904. 


16  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

Even  the  ancients  noticed  the  remarkably  peaceable  char- 
acter of  beasts  of  prey.     Lucretius,  for  example,  says: 

Quando  leoni 
Fortior  eripuit  vitam  leo?     Quo  nemore  unquam 
Expiravit  aper  majoris  dentibus  apri? 

(When  did  a  stronger  lion  ever  take  the  life  of  another  lion?  In 
what  wood  did  ever  a  swine  end  its  life  through  the  tusk  of  a 
bigger  swine  ?  ^ ) 

This  is  also  the  opinion  of  Montaigne,-  who  says  in  his 
"Apologie  of  Raymond  Sebond,"  comparing  the  intellectual 
attributes  of  beasts  with  those  of  man : 

As  for  warre,  which  is  the  greatest  and  most  glorious  of  all 
humane  actions,  I  would  faine  know  if  we  will  use  it  for  an  argu- 
ment of  some  prerogative,  or  otherwise  for  a  testimonie  of  our 
imbecilitie  and  imperfection,  as  in  truth  the  science  we  use  to  defeat 
and  kill  one  anotlier,  to  spoile  and  utterly  to  overthrow  our  owne 
kind,  it  seemeth  it  hath  not  much  to  make  itselfe  to  be  wislied  for  in 
beasts,  that  have  it  not. 

Similarly  Shaftesbury^  points  out  that  the  phrase  ''homo 
honvini  lupus"  ("Man  is  a  wolf  to  his  fellow-man"),  is  alto- 
gether absurd  when  we  retlect  that  wolves  are  very  gentle  and 
loveable  creatures  to  other  wolves. 

It  is,  indeed,  worthy  of  note  that  only  a  very  few  animals 
wage  genuine  wars.  In  the  case  of  most  animals,  for  instance 
young  dogs  and  cats,  the  so-called  fights  of  which  they  are 
fond  are  merely  sham  fights,  nowise  intended  to  injure  any 
one  else  taking  part,  but  only  as  training  for  future  fights  with 

1  Lucretius.     "De  rerum  NaturS,"  Book  II,  1,  32,3. 

2  Essays,  fifth  edition,  1588.  Book  2,  Chapter  XII,  Florio's  transla- 
tion. Nicolai,  doubtless  having  no  reference  library  at  his  disposal, 
quotes  from  memory  only.  I  have  quoted  the  original  passage. — Trans 
lator. 

3  "Moralists:  a  Philosophical  Rhapsody,"  by  Antony  Ashley  Cooper, 
third  Earl  of  Shaftesbury,  1671-1713.  II,  5,  German  translation  by 
Karl  Wolff:   Jena,  1910,  p.  86. 


WAR  INSTINCTS  17 

other  kinds  of  animals.  If,  therefore,  they  could  be  com- 
pared with  any  other  human  institution,  it  would  be  only 
with  sport,  which  is  man 's  way  of  playing.^ 

§  13. — The  Impossibility  of  War  without  Property 

Except  man,  the  only  creatures  that  wage  war  properly  so- 
called  among  themselves  (Homer's  Folemon  epidemion),  are 
stags,  ants,  bees,  and  a  few  birds.  All  these  creatures  live 
social  lives,  and  how  they  came  to  fight  one  another,  which, 
as  we  shall  see  in  Chapter  II,  is  contrary  to  the  universal  laws 
of  life,  is  what  needs  to  be  explained.  One  thing  is  clear 
from  the  first,  that  to  fight  one's  own  kind  is  fraught  with 
danger ;  and  as  an  animal  risks  its  life  in  so  doing,  the  possible 
reward  in  the  event  of  victory  must  be  sufficient  to  com- 
pensate for  such  high  stakes.  At  any  rate,  even  allowing  for 
an  animal  being  unable  to  estimate  so  exactly  what  is  and  what 
is  not  worth  while,  there  must  be  some  possible  reward  in  view 
which  induces  it  to  fight.  But  what  can  induce  a  tiger  to 
fight  another  tiger?  Tigers  never  eat  other  tigers,  and  in  any 
case  scarcely  any  animals  ever  eat  their  own  kind,  cannibalism, 
like  war,  being  one  of  the  blessings  conferred  by  civilization 
and  peculiar  to  man.  The  poor  tiger  has  really  nothing  but 
his  body  M'hich  could  tempt  another  tiger.  The  grounds  over 
which  he  hunts  do  not  helony  to  him;  and  if  another  tiger 
happens  to  covet  them,  he  will  go  and  hunt  there,  too.  Then, 
if  he  is  swifter,  and  consequently  catches  all  the  prey,  so 
that  the  other  tiger  gets  nothing,  the  latter,  if  he  does  not 
want  to  starve,  must  go  elsewhere;  but  if  the  old  tiger  is 
the  swifter,  then  the  new-comer  will  be  forced  to  depart.  Thus 
the  struggle  goes  on  between  the  two  without  either  needing 
to  kill  the  other  and  without  the  loss  of  any  tiger  flesh. 

No  conqueror,  however,  can  rob  the  tiger  of  what  really 
belongs  to   him, — his  strength,   his  swiftness,  and   his  other 

1  Cf.  Grogs,  "Die  Spiele  der  Tiere"  ("Animals'  Games").  G.  Fischer: 
Jena,  1907. 


18  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

physical  endowments, — for  they  all  die  with  him.^  War  be- 
tween creatures  of  the  same  kind  is  wholly  unthinkable  unless 
they  are  either  cannibals  or  possessed  of  something  of  which 
it  is  worth  while  robbing  them.  This  latter  hypothesis  is  by 
far  the  more  important  of  the  two. 

War,  therefore,  cannot  occur  until  a  certain  level  of  civiliza- 
tion has  been  attained ;  -  for  man  or  beast,  as  the  case  may  be, 
must  have,  at  any  rate,  reached  the  stage  of  feeling  that  he 
or  it  has  a  right  to  possess  some  thing  or  other,  whether  it  be 
merely  an  old  bone  which  a  dog  has  buried  and  which  he  often 
defends  as  vigorously  as  a  human  being  his  money-chest,  or 
whether  it  be  a  female  for  the  possession  of  which  stags 
and  cocks  fight  in  truly  human  fashion.  Genuine  wars,  how- 
ever, did  not  begin  except  where  actual  property  was  accumu- 
lated ;  and  as  property  is  in  a  certain  sense  a  sign  of  civiliza- 
tion, war  might  likewise  appear  to  be  so.  Accordingly,  we  Hnd 
that  wars  proper  do  not  occur  among  animals  except  in  the 
case  of  ants  and  bees,  and  that  they  are  waged  for  the  sake 
of  honey,  a  habitation,  and  supplies.  For  such  things  man 
fights  also.  The  property  may  consist  in  fields  laid  out  in  all 
manner  of  different  ways,  in  weapons,  tools,  accumulated  stores 
of  gold,  or  in  anything  whatsoever;  or  it  may  be  flocks  and 
herds  that  are  involved,  or  women,  either  as  beasts  of  burden 
or  as  sexual  property;  or  even  man  himself,  who  is  handed 
over  to  the  victor  as  a  slave.  Whenever  there  is  nothing  to 
be  had,  however,  no  fighting  takes  place,  and  Hume  ^  is  quite 
right  in  saying  that  a  savage  is  but  little  tempted  to  turn 
another  savage  out  of  his  hut  or  rob  him  of  his  bow,  being 
himself   already   provided  with  these   things.     Propertyless 

1  The  fact  that  man,  having  become  superstitious,  hoped  to  acquire 
the  physical  characteristics  of  his  fellow-men  by  eating  them  has  al- 
ways lieen  cited  by  students  of  the  lower  races  as  one  of  the  reasons 
which  led  to  cannibalism.  Just  as  superstition  is  a  human  character- 
istic, so  also  is  the  cannibalism  resulting  from  it. 

-Even  cannibalism,  as  modern  ethnologists  all  agree,  presupposes  a 
certain  level  of  civilization.      (Cf.  infra.) 

3  "Treatise  on  Human  Nature."  Vol    III,  pp.  2,  8. 


WAR  INSTINCTS  19 

animals  consequently  live  in  peace  one  with  another.  In 
other  words,  even  the  fiercest  beasts  of  prey  do  not  fight 
among  themselves  save  for  quite  exceptional  causes,  which 
very  seldom  occur,  and  which  are  rightly  considered  as  usually 
betokening  degeneration. 

Would  man  but  realize  that  there  is  nothing  natural,  noth- 
ing great,  and  nothing  noble  about  war,  but  that  it  is  merely 
one  of  the  numberless  consequences  of  the  introduction  of 
property !  In  short,  war  in  its  essence  is  a  business,  like 
thousands  of  others,  except  that  it  is  unnatural  and  assumes 
certain  violent  forms.  This,  however,  does  not  alter  the  fact 
tliat  it  is  essentially  the  same  thing. 

It  is  not  so  very  long  since  that  the  head  of  a  business 
house  as  well  as  the  leader  of  a  troop  of  soldiers  was  called 
Kiptain^  {capifano),  so  that  the  lieutenant  of  to-day  need 
not  look  down  so  proudly  on  a  mere  clerk.-  They  are  both 
brcjthers. 

4. — THE   NATURAL   PRICE   OP    WAR 

§  14. — War  and  Slavery 

For  whatever  purpose  a  war  may  be  fought,  however  great 
the  spoils  of  the  victor,  mankind  must  always  be  exploited, 
either  because  the  accumulated  results  of  his  labor  are  forcibly 
appropriated  or  because  others  are  trying  to  use  the  results  of 
his  future  labor  for  themselves.  Thus  every  war  which  has 
any  practical  result,  and  is  not  wholly  superfluous,  must  neces- 
sarily result  in  the  enslavement  of  a  portion  of  mankind. 
One  consequence  of  this,  however,  is  that  war  was  justifled 
only  so  long  as  it  was  considered  justifiable  to  impose  some 

'  This  word  is  in  English  in  the  original. — Translator. 

-  Kvfu  tile  Frencli  word  commis  (clerk)  (Oerman,  Kommis)  is  de- 
ii\ed  from  the  Latin  committere  (fight),  although  this  word  can  never 
li«'  jiroved  to  have  had  two  meanings  Compare,  however,  the  two 
DieiUiings  of  compngnie,  campagne.  the  same  root  aa  in  Commerzienrat 
I  councilor  of  commerce,  a  Orman  title  conferred  upon  distinguished 
linancicrs  and  l)usiness  men — Translatorl  and  mercenarius.  Both  de- 
live  tlieir  name  from  the  same  root,  capere  (take). 


20  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

form  or  other  of  slavery  upon  the  vanquished;  while  another 
consequence  is  that  there  can  he  only  any  object  in  war  so 
long  as  it  is  possible  to  impose  this  slavery. 

Even  ou  superficial  reflection  it  is  obvious  that  the  terms 
of  modern  peace  treaties  likewise  attempt  to  impose  some 
form  of  slavery.  AVhat  is  a  war  indemnity  if  not  part  of  the 
labor  of  a  vanquished  foe,  of  which  we  as  "exploiters"  are 
depriving  him?  It  is  the  same  thing  under  a  finer  name,  and 
Goethe  ^  is  not  so  very  far  wrong  in  thinking  that  there  is 
not  much  to  choose  between  honest  soldiers  imposing  a  war 
tax  and  a  gang  of  thieves. 

Private  property  to-day  is  supposed  to  be  protected ;  but 
even  if  this  is  so,  it  is  only  to  the  extent  of  taking  nothing 
from  the  person  directly,  but  merely  indirectly  by  imposing  a 
burden  on  the  entire  conquered  people,  which,  after  all, 
amounts  to  very  much  the  same  thing. 

^Moreover,  what  can  the  conquest  of  a  province  mean  except 
that  we  partly  appropriate  to  ourselves  what  the  enemy  has 
done  there,  and  thus  are  again  guilty  of  exploitation?  This 
is  of  course  also  the  case  if  the  conquered  province  is  consid- 
ered only  as  a  colony  to  serve  the  purpose  of  national  expan- 
sion, save  that  in  this  case  it  is  not  the  individual  citizen  who 
is  concerned,  but  the  community  as  a  whole,  and  that  it  is  not 
merely  material  property  which  is  involved,  but  also  to  some 
extent  civilization  and  ideals.  In  principle,  however,  it  is 
the  same  thing. 

Whether  war  really  does  make  such  exploitation  possible  is 
another  question.-  At  any  rate,  this  is  the  object  of  war, 
and  therefore,  if  slavery  were  really  abolished,  there  would 

1  Goethe,  who  makes  Habehald,  in  -Faust,"  II,  4,  say  to  the  Kaiser's 
myrmidons,  who  call  him  a  low  thief: 

Die  Redlichkeit,  die  kcnnt  man  sehon, 

Sie  heiast:     Kontribution, 

Ihr  alle  seid  aiif  gleichem  Fuss: 

Gib  her!      Das  ist  dt-r  Handwi-rksgruss. 

2  Cf,  §  52-54,  about  the  advantages  derived  from  war. 


WAR  INSTINCTS  21 

be  no  longer  any  object  in  war;  and  as  a  matter  of  fact,  there 
is  no  object  in  it  in  so  far  as  slavery  has  been  abolished. 

Now,  slavery  being  forbidden  by  our  present  laws,  and 
being  also  to  a  certain  extent  rendered  impossible  by  present 
conditions,  war  has  in  a  twofold  sense  lost  all  justification  for 
its  existence.  In  law  it  is  no  less  contrary  to  morality  than 
slavery,  and  there  can  be  no  greater  advantages  connected 
with  it  than  with  slavery.  True,  numerous  relics  of  slavery, 
such  as  exploitation,  still  persist,  and  just  so  far  as  these 
relics  extend  can  there  now  be  said  to  be  any  object  in 
war.  Every  one,  however,  who  defends  war  under  any  con- 
ditions whatever  ought  to  know  that  in  so  doing  he  is  advo- 
cating slavery. 

§  15. — The  Uses  of  Enslavement. 

This  inevitable  connection  between  war  and  slavery  points 
to  the  fact,  however,  that  war,  like  slavery,  had  once  some 
use;  for  there  can  be  no  possible  doubt  that  at  a  certain 
phase  of  civilization  it  was  not  only  a  benefit,  but  probably  also 
a  dire  necessity,  for  the  majority  of  mankind  to  be  forced  to 
work  for  others.  An  animal's  life  is  almost  wholly  taken  up 
by  the  business  of  feeding.  Vegetable  feeders  are,  after  all, 
obliged  to  swallow  huge  ciuantities  of  food,  and  when  not  eat- 
ing, these  are  engaged  in  digesting  the  food  or  in  chewing 
the  cud;  and  even  beasts  of  prey  spend  their  days  in  hunting, 
eating,  and  sleeping,  which  merely  means  that  they  are  rest- 
ing so  as  to  be  ready  for  more  predatory  excursions.  If  to 
this  is  added  the  time  which  animals  require  for  the  business 
of  love-making  and  for  a  certain  amount  of  attention  to  physi- 
cal cleanliness,  there  is  hardly  any  spare  time  left. 

Now,  the  life  of  primitive  man  can  scarcely  have  differed 
from  that  of  animals,  for  he,  too,  spent  the  whole  day  in  the 
satisfaction  of  his  physical  needs.  Man,  however,  in  contra- 
distinction to  animals,  has  needs  of  a  higher  kind.  When  these 
needs  be^^an  to   assert  themselves,  while  mankind  was  still 


22  THE  BIOLOGY  OP  WAR 

obliged  to  work  virtually  all  day  long  iu  order  to  keep  alive, 
it  was  right  and  necessary  that  the  great  mass  of  men  should 
work  rather  more  than  was  absolutely  needful  for  themselves 
in  order  that  a  select  few,  without  themselves  working,  might 
be  enabled  to  live  at  leisure  on  the  superfluity  acquired  by  the 
labor  of  others,  and  devote  themselves  to  the  promotion  of 
civilization.  Similarly,  it  was  equally  necessary  and  desir- 
able that  a  few  people  should  be  able  to  live  on  the  product  of 
the  labor  of  other  peoples  in  order  likewise  to  have  leisure  to 
promote  civilization.  It  is  absolutely  impossible  that  the  mar- 
velous civilization  of  the  ancients  could  have  existed  without 
there  having  been  slaves. 

The  time  came,  however,  when  another  kind  of  organization 
rendered  slavery  superfluous.  The  community  as  a  whole 
voluntarily  gave  up  part  of  its  earnings  to  be  devoted  to 
purposes  of  civilization ;  for  when  the  state  hands  over  to  the 
ministry  of  public  worship  and  education  a  portion  of  the 
funds  it  raises  by  taxation,  it  is  putting  something  in  the 
place  of  slavery.  Again,  a  select  few  are  enabled,  as  formerly 
by  slavery,  to  live  at  the  expense  of  the  generality.^ 

Moreover,  there  is  the  fact  that — at  any  rate,  in  principle — 
a  great  deal  of  work  once  done  by  slaves  can  now  be  per- 
formed by  machinery;  and  if,  as  is  unfortunately  the  case, 
our  requirements  had  not  been  increased  so  greatly  by  the  in- 
troduction of  new  technical  expedients  as  always  to  be  in  ad- 
vance of  what  can  be  achieved  by  machinery, — if,  for  in- 
stance, we  could  still  content  ourselves,  which  would  not  be  at 
all  a  bad  thing,  with  about  thrice  the  output  of  labor  of  the 
Greco-Roman  period, — then  workers  would  need  to  work  only 
a  few  hours  daily.  As  I  purpose  to  show,  our  machines,  in 
the  hours  worked  at  present,  get  through  about  ten  times  as 

1  The  sums  thus  expended  are,  taken  altogether,  inconsiderable,  al- 
thoujih  the  amount  necessary  for  an  individual  contributor  to  the  sum 
of  the  worlds  knowledge  works  out  fairly  high  For  example,  in  order 
that  one  Sansirit  student  may  have  the  requisite  leisure  to  pursue  his 
researches,  from  about  150  to  200  working-class  families  must  indi- 
rectly hand  over  to  him  their  surplus  labor. 


WAR  INSTINCTS  23 

much  as  human  hands ;  and  therefore,  in  order  to  get  through 
thrice  as  much,  they  would  need  to  work  only  one  third  as 
long  as  is  now  the  case.  Consequently  the  workmen  would 
require  to  work  only  one  third  as  long  as  is  at  present  cus- 
tomary. 

The  world,  however,  will  have  none  of  such  moderation, 
and  political  economists,  to  suit  many  greedy  people,  in- 
vented the  phrase  about  national  well-being  increasing  with 
increased  power  of  consumption.  Possibly  w^hat  is  defined 
as  national  well-being  may  be  thus  increased,  which,  however, 
would  only  go  to  prove  that  the  definition  is  meaningless;  for 
in  reality  national  well-being  does  not  become  greater  because 
all  manner  of  superfluous  trash,  such  as  oleographs  and  shell- 
covered  boxes,  is  palmed  off  upon  the  working-classes  to- 
day. But  it  is  this  artificially  excited  greed  which  in  the  end 
still  continues  to  bolster  up  slavery  in  the  shape  of  exploita- 
tion and  war. 

As  property  engendered  theft,  even  so  it  has  engendered 
war  and,  in  its  train,  all  crimes,  although  here  and  there  it 
was  an  incentive  to  virtue.  Thus,  for  feeble  souls  who  will  not 
exert  themselves  save  in  the  hope  of  becoming  possessed  of 
some  tangible  object  it  is  well  that  there  should  be  something 
in  the  nature  of  a  stimulus.  So  matters  remained,  and,  as 
Greek  and  Koman  heroic  poets  recognized,  with  true  percep- 
tion of  the  facts  of  life,  the  struggle  went  on  for  thousands 
upon  thousands  of  3'ears  for  the  sake  of  the  world's  precious 
goods,  for  love,  and  for  gold.  Covetousness  began  with  rob- 
bery, which  in  turn  aroused  in  its  victim  anger  and  vengeance. 
The  Iliad  is  the  song  of  songs  not  only  of  a  fight  for  a  woman 
{Paridis  propter  amorcm),  bringing  death  and  ruin  in  its 
wake,  but  likewise  of  the  wrath  of  Achilles;  while  the  burden 
of  the  Nibelungen  myth  is  the  fight  for  the  sparkling  golden 
treasure  and  the  vengeance  of  Krimhild} 

1  These  poems  have  greater  unity  than  seems  to  be  the  case  at  first 
sight,  for  the  wrafh  of  Achilles  was  evcited  in  the  fight  for  the  woman 
{Briaeia),  and  tlie  vengeance  of  Krimhild  also  in  its  essence  has  to  do 


24  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

True,  for  the  time  being,  Veuus  liad  ceased  to  spur  the 
Crusaders  ou  to  tight,  her  place  beiug  takeu  by  the  divine 
Virgin,  and  that  red  gold  which  once  seemed  the  sole  posses- 
sion worth  striving  for  is  now  merely  the  symbol  of  power 
and,  above  all,  of  possession;  but  the  principle  remains  un- 
changed. Only  very  rarely  does  it  seem  as  if  a  multitude  of 
people — for  instance,  the  Albigenses — make  an  effort  to  fight 
for  a  new  idea.  Even  then  I  believe  that  they  only  seem  to 
do  so,  and  that  closer  inspection  would  reveal  other  motives. 
I  cannot,  indeed,  conceive  of  men  drawing  the  sword  for  an 
idea  pure  and  simple,  an  idea  wholly  unconnected  with  any 
conception  of  power.  For  the  conception  of  country  and 
nothing  else  it  is  probably  possible  to  ilght,  by  endeavoring  to 
express  to  the  full  in  oneself,  and  therefore  for  others,  the 
genius  of  one  s  own  people;  but  it  will  scarcely  promote  any 
purely  patriotic  conception  to  begin  shooting  for  it  with 
cannon.  The  value  of  such  material  arguments  cannot  become 
clearly  manifest  until  purely  patriotic  ideas  have  become 
closely  intermingled  with  impure  and  covetous  conceptions 
of  power  and  property. 

Fighting,  in  short,  is  intimately  bound  up  with  property 
and  slavery,  and  Goethe  ^  knew  what  he  was  writing  about 
when  he  said; 

"Krieg,  Handel  und  Piraterie 
Dreieinig  sind  sie,  nieht  zu  trennen." 

with  the  possession  of  treasure.  In  the  medieval  Nibelungenlied,  which 
has  been  recast  in  a  Christian  sense,  this  appears  less  clearly.  Wagner 
brings  it  out  more  strongly. 

1  "Faust,"  Part  II,  5.  Mephistopheles's  words  when  he  hands  over  to 
Faust  the  proceeds  of  a  voyage.  ("War,  trade,  and  piracy  are  trinity 
in  unity,  inseparable.") 


CHAPTER  II 

War  aud  the  Struggle  for  Life 

1. — the  bases  op  war 
§  16. — Darwinism 

Eagerness  to  acquire  property  was  originally  the  cause  and 
object  of  war.  In  the  course  of  evolution,  however,  the 
signification  of  any  particular  occurrence  may  change,  which 
is  what  is  known  as  a  change  of  function.  When  our  ances- 
tors, for  instance,  were  still  swimming  about  in  ponds,  our 
lungs,  which  we  now  use  for  breathing,  were  a  floating  blad- 
der ;  and  later  on,  when  they  were  already  living  in  trees, 
our  hands,  with  which  now  we  grasp  hammers,  slate-pencils, 
axes,  and  swords,  were  meant  for  climbing.  Thus  the  function 
of  these  organs  of  ours  altered,  and  similarly  the  meaning  of 
our  institutions  altered. 

To-day  marriage  and  the  stage  are  moral  institutions,  but 
they  arose,  in  the  case  of  the  former,  from  desire  for  posses- 
sion, and  in  the  case  of  the  latter  from  pleasure  in  motion, 
as  witness  dancing,  music,  and  tragedy.  The  like  is  true 
with  regard  to  war.  It  arose  as  a  means  of  robbery,  but  be- 
ing virtually  useless  in  this  capacity  at  present,  new  func- 
tions were  discovered  for  it,  and  now  it  is  stated  to  tend  to 
counteract  materialism,  degenerative  tendencies,  and  so  forth. 

Love  of  possession,  which  was  first  aroused  in  man,  merely 
explains  how  man,  forsaking  the  habits  of  his  peaceful  pro- 
genitors, first  came  to  wage  war.  Once  this  was  done,  how- 
ever, war  ceased  to  be  a  mere  "action,"  and  even  became 
"a  factor  in  education." 

Now,  we  first  perform  our  actions  and  then  cannot  shake 

25 


26  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

off  the  effects  of  them.  Cain,  who  slew  his  brother  Abel, 
was  never  the  same  again,  and  to  this  day  mankind  still  bears 
the  brand  of  Cain.  In  this  respect  war  is  nowise  different 
from  any  other  human  action.  We  have  created  speech, 
agriculture,  technical  science,  and  much  else  besides,  and 
they  are  now  educating  us,  A  great  many  human  institutions, 
such  as  cannibalism,  slavery,  and  idolatry,  moreover,  have 
been  only  temporary;  but  they,  too,  have  left  indelible  traces 
on  the  human  soul.  Similarly,  the  fact  that  our  ancestors 
waged  war  continuously  for  more  than  ten  thousand  years 
cannot  be  obliterated  and  leave  no  trace.  It  would  be  enough 
to  give  the  most  pacifically  inclined  human  being  a  warlike 
bent. 

The  belief  gained  ground,  however,  that  still  greater  in- 
fluence might  be  ascribed  to  war,  particularly  an  influence 
upon  human  evolution.  War,  in  short,  as  one  form  of  the 
struggle  for  life,  was  said  to  cause  selection.  Most  of  the 
theoretical  defenders  of  war  to-day  are  wholly  ignorant  of  nat- 
ural science.  They  have  nevertheless  heard  enough  of  Darwin- 
ism to  know  that  Darwin  was  said  to  have  stated  that  all  living 
creatures  achieve  victory  by  means  of  struggle,  and  that 
everj'v\'here  the  unfit  are  exterminated  and  the  fit  survive,  and 
thus  the  race  is  perfected.  What  could  be  more  obvious  than 
to  apply  this  theory  to  war?  The  fit  nations  conquer,  the 
unfit  perish.  This  may  be  terrible,  and  a  constant  hindrance 
to  progress  in  the  case  of  individual  nations,  which  is  cer- 
tainly regrettable,  but  it  is  the  only  way  to  sift  the  wheat  from 
the  chaff.  Moreover,  by  this  method  perfection  is  eventually 
attained,  even  if  the  way  thereto  is  long  and  leads  over  moun- 
tains of  corpses.  In  short,  it  was  believed  that  the  right  to 
make  war  was  one  of  the  so-called  natural  rights  that  are 
part  of  our  birthright,  and  that  war,  like  the  struggle  for  ex- 
istence, is  profitable  to  mankind. 

Now,  apart  from  the  fact  that  the  expression  "innate  nat- 
ural right"  means  nothing,  and  that  the  struggle  for  exist- 
ence need  by  no  means  always  be  profitable,  war  does  not  at 


WAR  AND  THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  LIFE  27 

all  come  within  the  conception  of  "struggle  for  existence"  in 
the  true  sense  of  this  phrase.  This  claim  in  behalf  of  war 
is  therefore  reduced  to  virtually  nothing.  We  must  not  be 
surprised,  however,  at  its  having  been  advanced,  for  our  gen- 
eration can  scarcely  realize  the  feeling  of  enfranchisement 
caused  throughout  Europe  by  the  publication,  on  November 
26,  1854,  of  "The  Origin  of  Species."  All  branches  of  sci- 
ence were  immediately  hypnotized  by  enthusiasm  for  the  idea 
of  struggle,  and  efforts  were  made  to  apply  it  to  chemistry, 
astronomy,  cosmology,  and  sociology.  It  is  only  with  its  ap- 
])lieation  to  sociology  that  we  are  concerned,  and  this  was 
the  most  risky.  Struggle,  indeed,  which  is  met  with  through- 
out nature,  does  not  cease  just  at  the  time  when  man  comes 
upon  the  scene,  for  he,  too,  is  wholly  subject  to  the  law  of 
struggle,  and  no  one  has  ever  doubted  this. 

The  saying  that  life  is  a  struggle  is  found  in  the  writ- 
ings of  all  the  three  nations  to  whom  we  owe  our  civilization, 
the  Jews,  the  Greeks,  and  the  Romans,  and  we  moderns  have 
all  realized  this.  A  Frenchman,  Beaumarchais,  chose  as  his 
motto,  "^My  life  is  a  fight";  ^  an  Englishman,  Darwin,  was 
the  author  of  the  phrase  "struggle  for  life";  -  but  for  us  it  is 
a  German,  Goethe,  who  expressed  it  most  finely,  when  he 
said: 

Denn  ich  bin  ein  Mensch  gewesen, 
Und  (las  heisst  ein  Kiimpfer  sein.^ 

From  Job's  time  to  Goethe's,  however,  it  probably  never 
entered  into  the  mind  of  man  that  any  one  could  conceive 
of  its  being  possible  to  fight  out  with  muskets  or  cannon 
the  strugjile  which  is  supposed  to  fill  man's  life. 

Stniiigle  is  everywhere:  it  is  only  the  methods  of  carrying 
it  on  which  vary.     The  fox's  way  of  struggling  with  the  hare 

1  Tn  tliis  form  the  phrase  is  due  to  Voltflire's  "^Mahomet,"  11,4. 

'■i  English  in  the  original.  Darwin  generally  says  "struggle  for  exist- 
ence " — Translator. 

3  Tn  his  "Westostlicher  Divan,"  1819.  (For  I  have  been  a  man,  in 
other  words  a  fighter. — Translator.) 


28  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

is  to  eat  up  her  food ;  two  species  of  mice  struggle  one  against 
the  other  by  one  of  them  being,  for  instance,  more  capable 
of  resisting  cold  than  the  other.  Thus  the  diverse  kinds 
of  struggle  in  nature  can  by  no  means  be  compared  out- 
right; for  every  species  of  living  creature  struggles  for  its 
existence  in  whatever  way  is  best  adapted  to  it.  Similarly 
it  is  a  mistake  to  insist  that  struggle  for  existence  must  neces- 
sarily be  horrible  or  even  brutal.  Such  terms  are  meaning- 
less, and  old  Busch  showed  that  he  had  more  understanding 
of  nature  than  all  the  so-called  Darwinian  philosophers,  whom 
he  put  to  shame  by  his  lines : 

Menseh  mit  traurigem  Gesiehte, 

Sprich  niclit  nur  von  Leid  und  Streit. — 

Selbst  in  Brehms  Naturgeschichte 
Findet  sieh  Barmherzigkeit !  ^ 

Darwin  himself,  in  Chapter  V  of  his  "Descent  of  Man,"  ex- 
plained that  social  instincts  are  present  even  in  the  lower 
animals,  thus  admitting  their  importance.  His  successors, 
however,  neglected  this  aspect  of  his  teachings,  and  above  all 
failed  to  realize  that,  if  these  social  instincts  are  traced  back, 
a  principle  is  arrived  at  which  has  been  developed  in  and 
owing  to  struggle,  but  cannot  have  orginated  in  it. 

It  is  not  chance  that  it  should  have  been  almost  exclu- 
sively Russians,  the  offspring  of  a  race  and  inhabitants  of  a 
country  in  which  the  social  system  of  the  mir  (village  com- 
munity) still  prevailed  who  insisted  upon  this  aspect  of  Dar- 
winian Darwinism,  thereby  opposing  the  excrescences  of  mod- 
ern Darwinism. 

Indications  of  a  belief  in  the  existence  of  social  instincts 
in  the  lower  animals  may  even  be  found  in  Goethe  -  and  in 

1  These  lines,  unless  1  am  mistaken,  are  not  by  Busch,  but  by  Bier- 
baum  or  Hartleben. — Translator. 

2  Goethe,  writing  to  Eckermann  on  October  8,  1827,  mentions  that  the 
fact  that  a  mother  bird  feeds  interlopers  [young  cuckoos,  for  example] 
is  an  indication  of  there  being  something  "divine"  underlying  it.     "If 


WAR  AND  THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  LIFE    29 

the  German  philosopher  Karl  Christian  Friedrich  Krause,^ 
while  Espinas  ^  cites  a  great  number  of  facts  bearing  on  the 
subject.  Lanessan  ^  also  described  the  chief  aspects  of  the 
social  impulse  in  animals ;  but  the  first  person  to  recognize  its 
importance  as  a  corrective  of  so-called  Darwinism  was  the 
Russian  zoologist  Kessler/  who  unfortunately  died  the  follow- 
ing year.  His  work,  however,  inspired  the  great  Krapotkin,^ 
to  write  in  "The  Nineteenth  Century''  a  series  of  articles 
extending  over  seven  years. 

Finally,  Novikow,"  in  many  of  his  writings  has  dealt  with 
the  same  subject;  but  how  slight  has  been  the  effect  of  all 
their  writings  on  orthodox  science  may  be  gaged  from  the 
fact  that  such  widely  known  names  as  those  of  Espinas  and 
Novikow  are  not  to  be  found  in  the  latest  edition  of  Meyer's 
"Konversatiouslexikon."  I  cannot,  however,  here  do  more 
than  refer  generally  to  these  writings ;  but  I  would  like  espe- 
cially to  recommend  every  one  interested  in  sociology  in  the 
true  Darwinian  sense  of  the  term  the  works  of  Peter  Krapotkiu 
and  Novikow. 

Like  every  other  species  of  living  creature,  man  also  carries 
on  his  struggle  for  existence,  in  wliich  there  is  neither  cruelty 
nor  benevolence,  neither  of  which,  for  that  matter,  occurs 
in  insensible  nature ;  aiid  he  carries  it  on  in  accordance  with 

this  were  a  univer8al  rule  prevailing  tlirougliout  nature,  then  it  would 
explain   mut-h   lliat   i^   iiiexplirable." 

1  Krause's  "Urbild  der  Menschheit"  ("The  Human  Prototype"): 
Dresden,  ISll.     Cf.  also  a  number  of  his  other  works. 

2  "Lea  Societes  animSles"  by  A.  Espinas:      Paris,  1877. 

3  Laneasan's  "La  lutte  pour  I'existence  et  I'assoeiation  pour  la 
lutte,"  1882. 

*  Kessler's  "Comptes  rendua  der  naturwissenschaftlichen  Gesellachaft" : 
St.  Petersburg.     Vol.  XT,  1880. 

5  1890-96.  This  series  of  articles  was  afterward  published  in  book 
form,  and  translated  into  (iernian  by  Gustav  Landauer.  A  popular  edi- 
tion was  published  by  Thomas:      Leipsie,  IIMIS. 

« Novikow's  works,  in  particular,  in  "Les  luttes  entre  societes  hn- 
niaines"  '.ird  ed. :  Paris,  F.  Akan,  1904,  and  "Die  (Jereclitigkeit  uiui 
die  Entfaltung  des  Lebens"  ("Justice  and  the  Development  of  Lite")  : 
Perl  in,  IQl)?. 


30  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

iron  laws,  rigid  and  eternal.  But — and  this  is  the  main  point 
— it  must  be  a  struggle  for  existence,  and  not  a  struggle  against 
existence,  which  war  is.  Now,  to  make  this  distinction  clearer, 
it  is  necessary  to  expound  the  universal  principle  of  struggle  in 
nature  (See  §§  19-21),  and  then,  to  consider  the  special  con- 
ditions under  which  man  has  to  struggle,  (§§  22-28).  This 
will  show  that  the  struggle  for  existence  is  concentrated  upon 
procuring  free  outlet  for  man's  mental  capacities,  and  thus 
rendering  the  maximum  amount  of  energy  available  for  man- 
kind. Every  struggle  which  helps  to  do  this  is  justifiable;  that 
is  to  say,  it  falls  into  line  with  human  progress,  and  every 
struggle  which  does  not  so  help  or  which  hinders  is  un- 
justifiable; that  is  to  say,  it  diverts  man  from  the  upward 
path  of  progress.  Such  justifiable  struggles,  alike  productive 
and  prodigal  of  life,  are  those  to  which  Laotse  refers  as  be- 
ing ' '  waged  with  living  weapons. ' '  Every  other  struggle,  on 
the  contrary,  is  fought  out  with  "hard,  cut-and-dried  weap- 
ons," and  with  these  no  victory  can  be  won.  To  which  cate- 
gory of  struggle  war  belongs  will  presently  appear. 

-  §  17. — The  Fundamental  Law  of  Growth  and  the  Limits  of 
Size 

The  meaning  of  this  universal  principle  of  struggle  in  na- 
ture cannot  be  understood  without  some  knowledge  of  the 
most  primordial  biological  law;  namely,  the  law  that  every- 
thing which  exists,  above  all  everything  which  lives,  tends 
to  increase  beyond  all  bounds.  Struggle,  indeed,  can  be  ex- 
plained only  by  the  law  of  growth,  for  in  itself  the  earth  would 
have  room  for  a  great  many  things  at  once,  but  as  each  thing 
tends  to  increase  to  an  unlimited  extent,  they  necessarily  come 
into  collision. 

We  often  meet  with  this  law  in  the  inorganic  world.  Owing 
to  the  effect  of  gravitation,  the  heavenly  bodies,  once  thej^  have 
taken  shape,  "grow"  b}^  attracting  to  themselves  everything 
coming  within  their  sphere;  and  even  a  crystal  "grows"  so 
long  as  sufficient  mother-lye  is  present.     In  short,  wherever 


WAR  AND  THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  LIFE    31 

the  phenomeua  of  motion  takes  place  there  is  an  unmistakable 
tendency  to  "accumulate  like  substances,"^  which  is  the 
same  thing  as  growth.  Even  now,  at  any  rate,  in  the  domain 
of  physics  this  can  be  accounted  for  theoretically,  or  at  least 
it  may  be  made  to  appear  plausible,  Zehnder  -  in  particular 
having  argued  much  on  these  lines.  Whatever  we  may  think 
of  his  and  similar  arguments,  it  is  nevertheless  a  fact  that 
everything,  and  above  all  every  living  substance,  grows. 

True,  there  are  limits  to  this  growth,  three  in  number.  A 
single  cell,  the  most  primitive  structure,  can  scarcel^^  grow 
beyond  the  size  of  a  pin's  head,  because  the  interior  of  the 
molecule  no  longer  receives  sufficient  nourishment  from 
osmosis,^  and  a  limit  is  thus  set  to  the  single-cell  form  of  life. 
The  tendency  to  grow  still  persists,  however,  despite  the  fact 
that  the  individual  cell  cannot  increase  in  size.  Hence  further 
growth  is  impossible  unless  the  isolated  cells  join  together  to 
form  communities  of  cells.  Thus  it  is  that  individual  beings 
or  polycellular  organisms  come  into  existence.  These,  too, 
have  an  inherent  tendency  to  become  larger  and  larger,  as  we 
can  see  in  tracing  the  development  of  animals.  For  instance, 
the  oldest  horse  with  which  paleontology  has  acquainted  us 
was  about  as  large  as  a  fox.  Gradually,  however,  it  grew, 
and  is  probably  still  continuing  to  grow;  and  so  it  is  with  all 
animals  and  likewise  with  us  human  beings. 

But  at  length  a  limit  is  reached  which  even  the  individual 
polj'cellular  creature  cannot  overstep.  For  mechanical  rea- 
sons aquatic  and  swamp-dwelling  animals  very  much  larger 

1  Empedocles  already  had  an  inklin":  of  this  primeval  law  of  growtli, 
for  he  -says  (see  Diel's  •Frajrmi'nts  of  the  Pre-'Socratics,"  Ist  ed.,  Em 
pedooles,  p  90)  :  "Thus  did  sweet  seek  after  sweet,  bitter  make  a  rusli 
for  hitter,  sour  after  sour,  etc." 

-' Zehnder's  "'ihe  Origin  of  Life"  ("Entstehung  dea  Lebens"),  1910. 
Pul)lished  by  H.  Laupp,  Tiihingen. 

3  All  that  is  necessary  is,  of  course,  that  one  dimension  should  not  be 
exceeded.  Cells  can  often  expand  to  a  comparatively  lar<re  size  in  a 
flat  shape.  Compare,  for  instance,  Caiilerpa,  which  attnins  a  super- 
ficies of  several  s(|uare  centimeters.  (Sap  probably  rises  in  plants  and 
glands  from  their  secretions  through  osmosis.) 


32  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

than  a  whale,  land  animals  very  much  larger  than  elephants,  or 
aerial  creatures  very  much  larger  than  a  swan  cannot  exist, 
for  they  could  no  longer  have  sufficient  strength  and  stability ; 
and  paleontology  teaches  us  that  this  limit,  which  Helmholtz 
among  others  calculated  in  theory  for  birds,  and  which  could 
be  equally  well  deduced  for  other  creatures,  is  in  practice  not 
overstepped.  In  tlie  course  of  thousands  of  years  all  species 
of  living  creatures  gradually  become  larger,^  and  when  they 
have  attained  the  limits  of  what  is  possible,  they  have  become 
extinct,  as  was  the  case  with  the  mastodon  of  the  Chalk  Age. 

Such  creatures  as  the  mastodon,  however,  enormous  as  they 
seem  to  us,  are  yet  small  in  comparison  with  the  size  to  which 
organic  substance  might  grow  and  to  which  it  tends  to  grow. 
But  as  mechanical  limits  are  fixed  by  mechanical  laws,  and 
therefore  cannot  be  overcome,  individual  creatures  must  do 
exactly  as  cells  do  in  a  lower  stage  of  development ;  and,  in 
obedience  to  the  tendency  to  grow  inherent  in  each  of  them, 
they  must  join  together  to  form  larger  structures. 

In  a  certain  sense  any  number  of  creatures  of  the  same 
kind — for  instance,  all  the  mice  in  the  world,  all  rodents,  all 
mammals,  all  animals,  in  short — may  be  considered  as  some 
such  larger  structure,  in  other  words,  as  an  organism.  The 
fact,  already  mentioned  that  animals  usually  do  not  eat  or  even 
attack  their  own  kind  may  be  instanced  as  indicating  that 
from  the  point  of  view  of  the  struggle  for  existence  an  entire 
animal  species  is  a  single  organism. 

Anything  so  loosely  welded  together,  however,  cannot  prop- 
erly claim  to  be  an  organism,  but  may  be  compared  to  some 
extent  with  loose  heaps  of  cells  as  they  occur  in  Volvox  globa- 
tor.  Unicellular  forms  of  life,  however,  have  developed  into 
organisms  properly  so  called.     Similarly  there  gradually  arose 

1  Tliis  applies  primarily  to  mammals,  but  even  here  there  are  notable 
exceptions,  although  they  can  usually  be  explained  by  certain  special 
circumstances,  as  is  the  case  with  the  diminution  in  size  of  unicellular 
fauna.  An  exception  to  the  principle  are  insects,  as  I  be'.ieve  the  still 
living  German  zoolojrist  Otto  zur  Strassen  was  the  first  to  point  out; 
and  they,  with  the  brachiopodes,  are  the  longest-lived  breed  on  earth. 


WAR  AND  THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  LIFE  33 

out  of  and  together  with  these  loose  conglomerations  higher- 
grade  organisms  represented  by  social  communities.^  Now, 
an  organism  is  superior  to  a  mass  of  cells ;  and  likewise  social 
communities,  more  especially  from  the  point  of  view  of  the 
struggle  for  existence,  present  obvious  advantages,  the  con- 
sequences of  which  is  that  animals  living  a  social  life  of  some 
sort  certainly  amount  to  more  than  nine  tenths  of  the  total 
animal  kingdom. 

Just  as  not  all  unicellular  creatures  have  evolved  into  pol}^- 
cellular  creatures,  and  an  iucalculable  number  of  protozoa  have 
remained  in  the  air,  in  the  water,  and  on  the  earth,  so  there  are 
even  now  many  creatures  which  live  alone.  The  number  of 
kinds  of  animals  which  have  risen  quite  sufficiently  high  to 
unite  together  for  social  purposes  is  small,  although  many 
certainly  live  in  herds,  which  is  a  good  beginning.  Properly 
constituted  communities  exist  only  among  the  highest  insects, 
such  as  bees  or  ants,  and  among  human  beings.  Consistently 
with  the  universal  tendency  toward  growth,  these  communities 
are  likewise  incessantly  growing.  In  the  case  of  man  we  shall 
be  able  to  trace  this  in  detail,  but  even  among  animals  we  see 
it  clearly.  To  cite  one  instance,  the  most  ancient  species  of 
EymenopiercF  (bees  and  bee-like  insects)  live  solitary  lives, 
after  which  come  others,  the  nest  of  which  contains  only  a 
very  few  compartments,  whereas  modern  bees  have  hives  with 
thousands  of  combs. 

§  18. — The  Impassable  Barrier 

There  is  even  a  limit  to  the  growth  of  these  conglomerations 
of  isolated  beings,  for  the  reason  that  the  earth  affords  sus- 
tenance (in  other  w^ords,  energy)  for  only  a  limited  number 
of  organisms.  But  whereas  the  osmotic  limit  to  single-cell  or- 
ganisms and  the  mechanical  limit  to  multicellular  organisms 
can  be  evaded  by  superior  grouping,  the  limit  tixed  by  the 
amount  of  energy  available  is  final  and  impassable. 

Now,  many  kinds  of  single-cell  creatures  and  many  fully 

1  See  Chapter  XIII. 


34  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

developed  species  of  animals  could  exist  side  by  side  and  in 
process  of  evolution  increase  and  multiply  to  the  utmost 
possible  extent.  But  if  one  kind  were  to  attain  its  final  stage 
of  organization  as  refjuired  by  the  law  of  growth, — that  is  to 
say,  if  there  were,  for  instance  twenty-five  billion  elephants 
or  a  thousand  billion  human  beings,  or  one  hundred  thousand 
billion  guinea-pigs,  or  ten  trillion  mice, — then  in  every  single 
case  there  would  be  no  longer  any  room  on  earth  for  any  other 
living  creature  besides.  As  every  species,  however,  is  striving 
toward  this  end,  the  law  of  growth  necessitates  struggle ;  but, 
what  is  equally  important,  it  likewise  prescribes  the  conditions 
of  such  growth. 

At  all  events,  this  struggle  must  be  incessantly  carried  on, 
since  there  is  an  enormous  risk  of  being  outstripped ;  and  it 
would  require  an  incredibly  short  time  for  one  species  of 
animal  to  increase  to  such  an  extent  as  to  consume  all  existing 
supplies.  It  is  the  bacteria  which  possess  the  greatest  amount 
of  vital  energy,  and  a  single  bacterium,  which  splits  up  every 
hour,  has  in  ten  hours  produced  about  a  thousand  ^  others. 
In  the  ensuing  ten  hours  each  of  these  bacteria  will  again  pro- 
duce another  thousand  bacteria ;  consequently  in  twenty  hours 
their  number  will  be  a  thousand  times  one  thousand,  or  one 
million.  And  this  process  would  continue,  were  it  only  pos- 
sible— as,  of  course,  after  a  time  it  cannot — to  provide  the 
bacteria  with  the  necessary  quantity  of  food.  That  is  to  say, 
at  the  end  of  every  ten  hours  three  naughts  would  have  to  be 
added  to  the  figure  denoting  the  number  of  bacteria,  whicli 
in  120  hours,  or  five  days,  would  have  attained  a  figure  with 
thirty-five  naughts,  and  in  ten  days  one  with  seventj'-two 
naughts.  Taking  even  the  smallest  sphasrobacteria  of  0.0001 
millimeter  ^  diameter,  it  is  easy  to  calculate  that  in  one  day  the 
colony  would  be  a  just  visible  pellet  of  .0098425  of  an  inch 
diameter;  the  second  day  it  would  already  fill  a  tumbler,  on 

iThus:     2,  4,  8,  16,  32,  64,  128,  256,  512,  1024. 
2  About  .00003937  of  an  inch.— Translator. 


WAR  AND  THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  LIFE    35 

the  third  a  four-story  house,  and  on  the  fourth  be  a  mountain 
as  large  as  Mont  Blanc.  At  the  end  of  four  days  and  four 
hours  it  would  have  increased  to  such  an  extent  that  it  could 
cover  the  whole  earth  with  a  living  coating  of  mucus  of  rather 
more  than  seven  and  three  quarters  of  an  inch  in  thickness, 
thus  attaining  the  maximum  quantity  of  living  substance  which 
could  exist  on  earth. 

Continuing  this  calculation,  we  find  that  by  the  fifth  day  the 
colony  of  bacteria  Avould  be  as  large  as  the  moon,  and  that 
from  the  sixth  day  onward  it  would  exceed  all  terrestrial 
measurements  so  rapidly  that  in  ten  days'  time  it  would  oc- 
cupy the  whole  of  the  space  visible  with  the  aid  of  the  best 
telescopes — space  with  a  diameter  of  more  than  one  hundred 
years  of  light. 

Although  the  growth  of  the  higher  animals  to-day  does  not 
proceed  at  anything  approaching  such  a  pace,  nevertheless, 
supposing  no  impediment  to  exist  to  their  increase,  then  one, 
or,  as  the  case  may  be,  two  specimens  of  bacteria  would  mul- 
tiply in  about  four  days ;  rabbits  and  mice  in  twenty  years ;  hu- 
man beings,  wdth  four  children  per  couple,  in  one  thousand 
two  hundred  and  fifty  years;  and  elephants  in  about  two 
thousand  years,  at  such  a  pace  as  to  attain  the  maximum  of 
w^hat  is  possible  in  this  world.  Thus  in  a  comparatively  short 
period  each  species  left  to  itself  would  be  able  so  completely 
to  fill  the  whole  world  that  there  would  be  no  room  left  for 
anything  else.  That  this  has  not  yet  happened  is  due  to  tliis 
very  fact  that  struggles  occur  between  the  diti'ercnt  species, 
and  that  in  the  nature  of  things  these  cannot  but  be  severe. 

Yet  it  seems  amazing  that  in  all  the  millions  of  years  that 
these  struggles  have  been  proceeding  no  single  species  should 
have  come  anywhere  near  dominating  the  rest,  and  in  fact  that 
all  existing  organisms  absorb  only  a  very  insignificant  portion 
of  the  energy  actually  at  their  disposal.  Whereas  each  square 
meter  of  ground  could  accommodate  440  pounds  of  living  sub- 
stance, in  reality  it  supports  only  about  0.4  grams  of  human 


36  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

substance,  or  only  two  milliontlis  of  what  is  possible ;  ten 

5 
grams  of  animal  substance,  only  of  what  is  possible; 

and  a  thousand  grams  of  plant  substance,  or  only  — —  of  what 

is  possible.^ 

In  order  to  understand  why  the  organic  world  has  availed 
itself  so  little  of  the  possibilities  open  to  it,  and  in  particular 
why  man,  this  world  s  master,  should  utilize  only  a  smaller  and 
smaller  fraction  thereof,  we  must  inquire  more  closely  into  the 
origin  of  life.  Not  until  we  understand  for  what  purpose  we 
are  striving  shall  we  realize  that  the  reason  why  we  have  made 
no  progress  in  this  "natural  struggle  involving  all  humanity" 
is  precisely  because  we  have  allowed  our  attention  to  be  too 
much  absorbed  by  "interhuman  wars." 


2. — THE   STRUGGLE   FOR   ENERGY 

§  19. — Why  This  Struggle  is  Waged 

The  purpose  for  which  this  struggle  is  carried  on  is  sus- 
tenance, using  the  term  in  its  broadest  sense ;  and  the  struggle 
for  existence  might  perhaps  be  more  aptly  described  as  a  strug- 
gle for  sustenance.  This  alone  explains  why  as  yet  no  kind  of 
organism  has  succeeded  in  ousting  all  other  forms  of  life ;  for 
the  fox,  for  instance,  needs  the  hare  as  food,  and  if  he  had 
eaten  up  the  last  hare  he  must  perforce  starve. 

Thus  the  eater  has  really  far  less  to  do  with  regulating  the 
numbers  of  the  eaten  than  vice  versa,  astonishing  as  this  may 
seem  at  first  to  those  who  believe  that  they  can  regulate  the 
course  of  the  world  with  the  help  of  cannon.     Moreover,  a 

1  At  present  each  square  kilometer  in  the  world  is  inhabited  by  11.4 
human  beings,  whose  weight  amounts  to  about  882  pounds  avoirdupois 
(that  is,  four  grams  per  square  meter).  Owing  to  the  absence  of  trust- 
worthy statistics,  the  other  figures  are  based  on  a  comparatively  arbi- 
trary estimate,  but  as  far  as  gradation  of  size  is  concerned  they  can- 
not be  wrong.  Moreover,  the  precise  figures  are  not  of  importance  in 
the  question  under  discussion.  Of  the  truth  of  the  principle  there  can- 
not be  any  doubt. 


WAR  AND  THE  STRICGLE  FOR  LIFE  37 

similar,  although  geuerally  a  less  simple,  connection  exists  be- 
tween all  animals.  Above  all,  however,  every  animal  needs 
plants,  for  plants  alone  are  capable  of  extracting  sustenance 
from  earth,  air,  fire,  and  water,  the  four  elements  of  the  an- 
cients. Hydrogen,  nitrogen,  oxygen,  and  carbon,  the  elements 
of  which  organisms  are  almost  exclusively  composed,  are  found 
in  superabundance  in  earth,  air,  and  water,  and  also  trifling 
additions  of  other  substances.  A  single  shipload  of  iron,  for 
example,  would  suffice  to  suppb^  every  one  in  the  world  with 
all  the  iron  they  require  (that  is,  as  a  physical  component), 
if  it  were  merely  a  question  of  materials;  therefore  there 
would  be  nothing  to  prevent  the  entire  globe  gradually  be- 
coming converted  into  living  substance,  and  henceforth  re- 
volving round  the  sun  as  a  genuine  organism. 

"What  is  lacking,  however,  is  the  fourth  element,  fire ;  for  if 
the  actual  food  be  sufficient  for  fully  one  hundred  trillion  tons 
of  organisms,  there  is  only  enough  of  the  fire  which  gives  them 
life  and  form  (that  is,  the  supply  of  energy  in  the  narrow 
sense  of  the  word)  for  about  one  hundred  billion  tons  of  living 
substance,  or  for  the  millionth  part.  Let  me  institute  a  com- 
parison. "Whereas  the  materials  would  suffice  for  a  large  Ber- 
lin block  of  flats,  the  energy  would  suffice  for  only  one  brick. 
Consequently  the  probability  from  the  outset  is  that  it  is  the 
comparatively  trifling  amount  of  energy-producing  sustenance 
which  will  be  the  object  of  struggle.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  this 
is  so.  Expressed  in  terms  of  physics,  life  is  equivalent  to 
causing  a  current  of  energy'  to  pass  through  a  person.  "When- 
ever man  eats  and  breathes,  he  absorbs  energy,  and  whenever 
he  works  or  thinks,  he  exhales  it  again,  and  the  source  of  all 
this  energy,  as  is  now  known  with  absolute  certainty,  is  the  sun. 

Now,  of  all  organisms  it  is  plants  alone  which  are  in  a  posi- 
tion to  utilize  the  radiating  energy  of  sunlight,  and  with  its 
aid  to  construct  out  of  earth,  air,  and  water  complex  chemical 
bodies,  which,  on  combustion,  like  gunpowder,  are  capable  of 
performing  labor.  The  powder  hurls  the  cannon-ball  out  of 
the  barrel,  and  in  like  manner  the  sugar  which  I  eat  enables 


38  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

my  muscles  to  throw  a  stone,  living  substance,  particularly 
that  of  animals,  being  capable  of  consuming  the  sustenance 
created  by  plants  and  converting  it  again  into  labor. 

This  is  commonly  called  the  rotation  of  life,  a  misleading 
phrase,  because  it  is  only  the  chemical  substances  of  which 
plants  and  animals  consist  that  take  part  in  this  rotation. 
The  genuine  life-giving  principle,  energy,  however,  does  not 
proceed  in  a  cj'cle,  its  action  being  rather  comparable  to  the 
parabolic  course  of  the  comets.  The  energy  liberated  in  the 
sun  radiates  thence  to  the  earth  in  eight  minutes,  remains 
here  a  certain  period,  varying  from  seconds  to  millions  of 
years,  and  then  slowly,  but  for  us  irrevocably,  quits  the  earth, 
and  finalh^  transformed  into  heat,  radiates  into  incommensur- 
able space. 

While  on  earth  the  sun's  energy  collects  water  to  form 
clouds,  raises  winds,  and  gives  rise  to  ocean  currents,  causes 
plants  to  grow,  and  by  means  of  phints  feeds  animals.  With- 
out the  sun  this  earth  would  be  a  body  ever  in  repose — the 
repose  of  death.  Not  a  breath  of  wind  would  ruffle  the  surface 
of  the  water,  not  a  cloud  arise  in  the  sky.  No  rain  would  fall, 
and  there  would  be  neither  trees  nor  slirubs,  neither  animals 
nor  human  beings.  The  sun's  energy  may  remain  long  on 
earth,  and  in  coal  it  has  perhaps  been  lying  for  millions  of 
years ;  but  the  day  must  come  when  it  will  leave  the  earth  and 
find  its  way  out  into  the  realms  of  space. 

Now,  what  is  needed  is  to  utilize  this  transient  force,  ab- 
sorbing as  much  or  causing  as  much  of  it  as  possible  to  pass 
through  ourselves.  This  stream  of  energy,  however,  without 
which  life  could  not  exist,  is  of  course  limited  in  size,  and  to 
form  an  approximate  estimate  of  its  volume  is  by  no  means 
impossible.  Pouillet,  in  fact,  has  already  done  this.  As  it  is 
known  how  much  energy  must  pass  through  every  pound 
weight  so  that  it  may  live,  so  it  is  also  known,  as  has  just  been 
pointed  out,  that  the  earth  cannot  support  more  than  a  hun- 
dred billion  tons  of  living  substance  at  most.  This  quantity, 
however,  could  live;  and  if  man  were  able  to  attract  all  the 


WAR  AND  THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  LIFE  39 

available  energy  to  his  own  race,  then,  instead  of,  as  at  present, 
1.5  billions  being  able  to  live  upon  the  earth,  about  three  mil- 
lion billions  could  do  so.  Mankind,  therefore,  might  increase 
a  millionfold.  Then,  instead  of  only  eleven  human  beings  on 
an  average  living  on  each  square  kilometer  of  earth,  as  is  now 
the  ease,  twenty  millions  would  do  so,  or,  as  some  means 
would  probably  then  be  discovered  of  living  on  the  water,  six 
millions.  In  any  case  there  would  then  be  six  human  beings 
for  each  square  meter,  and  mankind  would  therefore  have  to 
emulate  the  ants,  and  live  in  buildings  of  many  stories,  one 
above  another. 

Now,  this  luiniber  of  human  beings  is  attainable,  although 
for  reasons  presently  to  be  explained  we  shall  probably  never 
do  more  than  approach  it.  At  all  events,  not  only  is  there 
room  on  earth  for  all  those  at  present  inhabiting  it,  but  for 
countless  billions  besides. 

Mankind  is  now  in  the  midst  of  this  colossal  struggle,  which 
is  literally  a  struggle  for  a  place  in  the  sun ;  and  this  is  the 
struggle  which  ought  to  be  fought  out.  AVhatever  assists  it 
means  victory;  whatever  hinders  it  means  defeat. 

§  20. — Struggle  in  the  Ammal  Woi'ld 

The  object  of  this  struggle  for  existence  is  thus  made  clear 
beyond  all  possible  doubt.  Every  animal  and  every  species 
of  animal  must  aim  at  conducting  through  itself  and  its  own 
race  the  largest  possible  share  of  the  universal  stream  of 
energy;  but  there  are  very  many  different  waj's  in  which  this 
object  might  be  attained. 

The  first  and  most  primitive  method  consists  in  attempting 
to  deprive  others  of  something  by  killing  them  and  endeavor- 
ing to  utilize  the  energy  formerly  absorbed  by  them.  If  we 
reflect  that  the  entire  animal  world  does  not  use  up  more  than 
one  twenty-thousandth  part  of  the  oiergy  available,  it  is  evi- 
dent that  "theft"  would  be  of  even  less  use  in  this  case  than 
otherwise,  and  that  this  kind  of  stru'jigle  could  not  come  into 
consideration  unless  the  hitherto  unused  energy  v»^ere  abso-  / 


40  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

lutely  unusable.  If  all  the  bakers'  shops  were  shut,  it  is  con- 
ceivable that  some  one  might  commit  murder  for  the  sake  of 
food ;  but  if  loaves  were  lying  about  by  the  thousand,  it  would 
be  madness  for  any  one  to  strike  a  wretched  beggar  dead  to 
get  a  dry  crust.  As  will  shortly  be  shown,  man,  more  than 
any  other  creature,  is  capable  of  utilizing  for  his  own  purposes 
all  the  energy  hitherto  lying  fallow,  as  it  were ;  and  he,  there- 
fore, has  absolutely  no  need  to  attempt  to  obtain  it  by  any 
foul  methods.  Plow^ever,  it  was  just  such  methods  that  were 
invoked  in  order  to  popularize  the  struggle  for  existence, 
which  for  most  of  us  signifies  simply  killing  one  another. 

In  long-past  times  open  combat  was  of  considerable  im- 
portance, the  means  at  the  disposal  of  animals  for  the  full  utili- 
zation of  energy  being  very  inadequate.  Before  man  could 
be  lord  of  this  world  the  big  birds  of  prey  had  first  to  be  ex- 
terminated, which  caused  even  the  old  Roman  statesman  and 
philosopher  Boetius  ^  to  ridicule  war  between  man  and  man. 
"Ye  draw  the  sword  against  one  another,"  he  said,  "while  ye 
yourselves  are  threatened  by  snakes  and  lions,  bears  and 
tigers."  Nowadays,  however,  this  does  not  really  hold  good 
any  longer.  jMan,  as  if  still  an  animal  and  with  the  ways  of 
animals,  fought  to  a  finish  his  struggle  with  the  animal  king- 
dom; and  all  that  he  now  remembers  is  his  fight  against 
bacteria,  which,  characteristically  enough,  are  the  smallest 
known  living  creatures.  But  this  kind  of  struggle  does  not, 
even  in  the  case  of  animals,  really  count  as  part  of  the  struggle 
for  existence,  at  any  rate  not  in  so  far  as  it  aims  at  effecting 
selection ;  for  if  one  kind  of  animal  destroys  another,  it  does 
not  on  that  account  become  stronger  or  fitter.  The  destruction 
merely  proves  that  the  victor  was  already  stronger  and  fitter. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  is  a  well-known  fact  that  wherever  they 
have  no  competition  to  fear,  the  old  inetficient  types  have  sur- 
vived a  remarkably  long  while.  This  is  notably  the  case  with 
Australia,  where  there  are  no  native  mammals. 

Increasing  the  race  by  merely  insuring  its  increased  fer- 
1  Amicius  M.  S.  Boethius   (470-525),  "Consolatio  Philosoohiaa^" 


WAR  AND  THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  LIFE  41 

tility  might  be  considered  a  second  form  of  struggle  for  life. 
If  every  creature  uses  up  one  calory,-  then  one  hundred  will 
use  up  one  hundred,  and  one  thousand  will  consume  one  thou> 
sand  calories.  This  is  so  simple  an  example  that  it  is  at  once 
clear  to  every  one,  and  for  a  time  the  increase  of  the  human 
race  was  considered  a  universal  panacea  and  the  one  object 
to  be  attained.  But  the  fact  was  forgotten  that  increase  is 
valuable  only  in  so  far  as  the  race  is  at  the  same  time  im- 
proved, and  that  greater  fertility  does  little  to  promote  selec- 
tion unless  more  children  are  produced  than  can  live  under 
existing  conditions.  ^lany  would  then  of  necessity  die  young, 
and  in  accordance  with  universal  law  would  be  chiefly  weak- 
lings, so  that  the  result  would  be  a  finer  race  than  if  few  chil- 
dren w'ere  born  and  all  remained  alive  without  discrimination. 

In  Germany  to-day  the  population,  despite  a  rapidly  falling 
birth-rate,  increases  in  number,  owing  to  decreased  mortality, 
which  may  be  a  testimony  to  the  excellence  of  German  sani- 
tation and  public  health  regulations,  but  biologically  is  cer- 
tainly not  an  advantage.  This  desire  to  increase  population 
at  any  cost,  this  mad  craze  for  numbers,  moreover,  is  not  due 
to  scientific  reflection.  At  the  back  of  it  is  rather  the  desire, 
which  I  admit  is  often  vague,  for  as  many  soldiers  as  possible. 
It  is  thus  not  a  direct,  but  only  an  indirect,  result  of  Darwin- 
ian teachings,  traceable  to  the  notion  of  struggle  contained 
therein. 

Increased  population  is  supposed  to  be  the  consequence  of 
higher  evolution,  but  such  increase  is  not  itself  likely  to 
promote  evolution,  since  the  individual  organisms  and  the  dif- 
ferent species  of  animals  have  arisen  independently  of  one 
another,  and  their  mutual  dependence  is  so  great  that  it  is 
scarcely  ever  possible  for  one  to  increase  alone.  If  the  lion  is 
to  increase,  then  the  gazelles  must  first  do  so  also;  if  there  are 
to  be  swallows,  then  there  must  first  be  more  flies.  Beasts  of 
prey,  in  short,  are  dependent  upon  their  prey,  which  in  turn 

1  Torm  signifyin;!^  the  measure  with  which  energy  is  measured.  Man 
requires  twenty -five  hundred  calories  daily. 


42  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

depends  upon  plants.  Hence  the  old  saw  that  in  reality  all 
animals  and  human  beings  are  vegetable  feeders,  except  that 
the  ox  digests  the  grass  for  us  beforehand,  which  is  only  a  way 
of  saying  that  the  animal  kingdom  is  dependent  upon  the 
plant  world. 

Plants  alone  derive  sustenance  direct  from  the  sun's  rays, 
and  thus  they  alone  in  the  whole  creation  ought  to  be  able 
to  increase  independently  and  on  their  own  account.  Even 
they,  however,  are  dependent  on  animals  in  an  extraordinarily 
large  number  of  ways,  of  which  here  only  the  processes  of 
fertilization  need  be  mentioned.  In  principle,  at  any  rate, 
they  could  so  increase,  and  it  is  a  fact  that  bj'  far  the  greatest 
number  of  organisms  upon  earth  are  plant  organisms. 
"Whether  animals  are  as  one  per  cent,  or  more  as  compared 
with  plants  is  perhaps  hard  to  say,  but  in  any  case  plants  are 
in  a  very  large  majority. 

§  21. — Human  Struggle  on  Animal  Lines 

In  general,  even  man  has  hitherto  contrived  to  increase 
only  by  breeding  animals  and  cultivating  plants.  In  this  re- 
spect, therefore,  progress  seems  to  move  in  a  circle,  whence 
there  is  no  escape,  so  that  man  can  produce  more  only  by  mak- 
ing other  creatures  produce  more.  By  this  means,  however, 
it  is  possible  to  make  a  sensible  advance,  for  so  long  as  man 
lived  simply  like  an  animal  and  took  whatever  he  could  lay 
hands  on,  probably  at  most  one  hundred  million  such  human 
beings,  of  comparatively  modest  requirements  and  likewise 
comparatively  unskilful,  could  have  found  conditions  on  earth 
under  which  they  could  have  lived. 

Then  came  the  time  when  man  made  himself  master  of  this 
world,  although  at  first  merely  of  the  animal  and  vegetable 
kingdoms.  Now  we  arrange  the  world  as  we  please,  allowing 
only  such  animals  and  plants  to  persist  as  are  most  serviceable 
to  us — cultivated  plants  and  domestic  animals.  Thus  man- 
kind is  enabled  to  take  a  good  step  forward,  and  so  far  we 
have  already  increased   lifteenfold  since  the  barbarous  age 


WAR  AND  '/HE  STRUGGLE  FOR  LIFE  43 

when  man  depended  on  what  he  could  casually  find;  for  in- 
stead of  about  one  litindred  millions,  the  world  now  contains 
tifteen  hundred  millions.  Did  we  make  the  utmost  possible 
use  of  everything  in  this  the  agricultural  period  of  develop- 
ment, we  might  increase  another  fif teenfold ;  for  if  the  very 
most  were  made  of  the  whole  world,  probably  one  hundred 
and  fifty  human  beings  could  live  on  each  square  kilometer, 
and  the  population  would  thus  attain  22,500  millions.^  There 
is,  however,  still  energy  enough  for  100,000  times  more  human 
beings. 

The  following  table  is  instructive: — 


Population  in  round  numbers  which  the  earth  could  support 
at  different  periods: 

Barbaric  period   100  millions 

Agrarian  period                                ) present     ....1,500  *' 

"             "                                     )  maximum...  20,000  " 

Period  of  full  utilization  of  energy. .  .3,000,000,000  " 


We  arc,  therefore,  half-way  through  the  agricultural  period, 
which  must  already  have  lasted  about  twenty  thousand  years, 
perhaps  longer;  but  we  may  rest  assured  that  we  shall  be  far 
less  long  covei'ing  the  second  half  of  the  journey,  as  we  are 
now  directing  our  knowledge  and  efforts  toward  this  end. 

The  reason  why  with  agricultural  methods  we  cannot  rise 
above  a  population  of  twenty  billions  is  by  no  means  merely 
because  we  are  obliged  to  provide  sustenance  for  such  vast 
numbers  of  plants  and  animals  in  order  in  turn  to  obtain 
sustenance  ourselves,  but  mainly  because  we  do  not  make  ra- 

1  niiring  tlie  war  Germany  is  proving  that  she  is  almost  capahle  of 
supporting  a  population  of  120  per  sijuure  kilometer.  But  (Jermany  is 
neither  a  very  fertile  eonntry  nor  is  the  very  most  made  of  it  as  yet. 
Even  China,  not  including  Mongolia  and  Tibet,  with  her  "unseientific 
agriculture,"  has  succeeded  in  supporting  a  population  of  about  fifty- 
two  to  the  square  kilometer,  wliicli,  were  the  whole  world  equally 
densely  peopled,  would  be  equivalent  to  a  population  of  about  seven  and 
a  half  billions. 


44  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

tional  use  of  euergy,  superabundance  of  which  is  nevertheless 
available.  Most  important  of  all,  however,  is  the  fact  that 
we  still  continue  to  use  plants  in  order,  with  their  aid,  to 
utilize  the  sun's  rays.  Plants,  it  is  true,  are  the  gift  of  nature, 
but  they  are,  comparatively  speaking,  very  imperfect,  and  we 
l<noT^  that  there  are  better  methods  than  to  have  resort  to 
them. 

3. — THE   STRUGGLE   OF    MANKIND 

§  22. — Increase  of  Vitality 

This  new  method  of  combat,  which,  in  its  highest  and  most 
conscious  form,  at  all  events,  is  confined  to  human  societj' 
alone,  depends  on  the  opening  up  of  fresh  sources  of  energy, 
which  can  be  partly  done  by  increasing  the  vitality  of  the  in- 
dividual person. 

Animal  organisms  are  capable  of  consuming  vegetable  food 
and  converting  it  into  labor, — that  is  to  say,  using  it  to  move 
muscles,  form  secretions,  and  develop  brain  activity, — in  short, 
to  do  whatever  is  useful  to  the  living  creature  in  question. 
But  as  life  consists  solely  of  such  actions,  it  is  clear  that  the 
more  of  this  current  of  energy  an  animal  can  utilize  for  itself 
and  its  ow^n  purposes,  the  greater  will  be  its  vitality.     . 

If  an  animal  is  to  creep  or  run,  jump  or  climb,  swim  or 
fly,  faster  and  better,  then,  other  things  being  equal,  it  must 
consume  more  energy ;  and  if  it  becomes  capable  of  reacting 
more  quickly  or  with  less  provocation,  then  it  must  be  able 
1o  use  up  its  self-contained  energy  faster;  that  is,  to  consume 
more  energy  than  before  in  a  given  period.  Every  advance, 
in  short,  whether  in  perceptiveness  or  in  capacity  for  work 
is  possible  only  by  increased  consumption  of  energy ;  and  the 
whole  difference  between  us  and  the  lowest  form  of  animal 
life  crawling  about  sluggishly  on  the  bottom  of  the  ocean  can 
be  expressed  in  terms  of  energy. 

This  example  suffices  to  show  how  much  living  creatures 
have  already  perfected  themselves  in  the  process  of  evolution ; 
for   the  living  substance   of  the   higher  animals  actually  is 


WAR  AND  THE  STRUC4GLE  FOR  LIFE  45 

capable  of  increased  output  of  labor :  that  is,  it  consumes  more 
energy.  In  their  case  assimilation  of  nutriment  is  said  to 
proceed  much  more  rapidly.  The  quantity  of  energy  con- 
sumed per  kilogram  in  an  hour  by  polyps,  for  instance,  grow- 
ing almost  motionless  at  the  bottom  of  the  sea,  is  comparatively 
trifling.  The  quantity  of  energy  passing  through  insects, 
cuttlefish,  frogs,  and  reptiles  is  decidedly  greater :  but  not  till 
we  reach  the  higher  animals  do  we  find  this  current  of  energy 
attaining  such  intensity  as  permanently  to  warm  the  body, 
]\ran,  for  instance,  has  acquired  the  capacity  of  using  up  be- 
tween one  and  two  calories  per  kilogram  and  per  hour;  and 
one  human  being,  therefore,  consumes  in  an  hour  about  a 
hundred  calories,  or  even  very  much  more  in  case  of  severe 
physical  exertion.  Although  in  course  of  millions  of  years 
the  power  of  assimilating  energy  may  have  increased,  yet  man 
can  scarcely  be  said  to  be  better  off  in  this  respect  than  other 
mammals.  Man's  superiority  is  based  on  something  different. 
By  improving  their  physical  substance  and  correspondingly 
improving  their  organs,  animals  have  acquired  the  power  of 
utilizing  large  quantities  of  energy.  Thus,  when  the  slowly 
<iuivering  muscle  of  a  worm  evolves  into  the  rapidly  quivering 
muscle  of  an  insect,  the  creature  must  simultaneously  acquire 
increased  capacity  for  work,  else  there  would  be  no  object  in 
the  improved  muscle;  and  this  principle  obtains  everywhere. 
Every  new  organ  is  conditioned  by  and  re(iuires  a  capacity 
for  making  use  of  increased  and,  if  necessary,  fresh  sources  of 
energy,  which  sources  the  more  highly  developed  creature  finds 
in  eating  more  and  consequently  working  moi-e.  It  cannot, 
however,  eat  more  than  it  can  use  up,  and  thus  in  the  organi- 
zation of  any  particular  creature  a  limit  is  set  to  the  struggle 
for  energy. 

§  23. — The  Utilization  of  Extraneous  Energy 

l\fan,   however,  can  do  more  than   this.     As   I   shall   show 
more  in  detail  later  on,^  the  highest  animals  possess  about  the 
1  See  paragraph  2G. 


46  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

maximum  number  of  organs  which  they  are  in  a  position  to 
maintain.  1  also  propose  to  show  what  an  advantage  it  has 
been  to  man  from  the  psychological  point  of  view  to  have  been 
able  to  use  organs  which  can  be  laid  aside  or  changed,  as  tools. 
Here,  however,  I  wish  to  lay  stress  upon  another  aspect  of 
this  acquired  capacity  to  use  tools — the  fact  that  it  enables 
man  to  utilize  for  his  own  purposes  almost  unlimited  (|uan- 
tities  of  energy.  I  admit  that  this  is  not  absolutely  without 
precedent  in  the  animal  kingdom,  for  man,  after  all,  is  re- 
sponsible for  hardly  any  absolute  innovation.^ 

For  instance,  when  a  bird  of  prey  high  up  aloft  circles  round 
and  round  almost  motionless,  it  is  utilizing  the  energy  of  the 
wind,  and  when  ants  keep  slaves,  they  are  utilizing  part  of 
the  latter 's  vital  energy;  but  it  was  man  from  whose  groping 
efforts  something  independent  was  first  evolved.  Man  it  was 
who  first  developed  and  extended  the  struggle  for  energy  by 
learning  to  make  use  of  extraneous  energy  without  its  passing 
through  his  body.  The  beginning  of  this  phase  of  develop- 
ment may  be  traced  even  among  the  most  primitive  human 
beings,  who  made  the  ox  pull  for  them,  the  horse  run  for  them, 
the  dog  hear  and  smell  for  them,  and  the  sheep  protect  them 
from  cold.  Every  domestic  animal,  indeed,  that  primitive 
man  tamed  for  his  own  ends  became  a  factor  in  the  production 
of  energy.  Animals,  however,  were,  after  all,  utilized  only 
by  making  them  do  that  which  was  natural  for  them  to  do; 
and  a  further  difticulty  very  soon  made  itself  felt, — a  diffi- 
culty which  has  become  very  manifest  in  Germany  during  the 
present  war, — that  a  horse  which  eats  oats  is  thereby  eating 
man's  food.  If  we  can  imagine  the  whole  world  ever  being 
so  full  of  horses  and  human  beings  as  is  Germany  to-day,  then 
it  will  be  impossible  any  longer  to  import  food  from  anywhere, 
and  even  in  times  of  peace  there  will  be  keen  competition  bc- 

1  In  reality  the  only  innovation  in  principle  and  without  parallel  in 
nature  is  tlie  wlieel,  which,  with  its  axle,  cannot  be  formed  by  any 
single  organi:^m.  The  realization  of  this  fact  would  simplify  many 
problems,  particularly  in  aeronautics. 


WAR  AND  THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  LIFE  47 

tvveen  human  beings  and  the  horses  that  the}^  themselves 
have  bred. 

Obviously,  if  all  horses  were  replaced  by  motor-cars,  then 
more  human  beings  could  live  on  earth  than  formerly.  In  this 
case  the  motor-car  represents  the  new  principle  according  to 
^vllich  man  is  able  to  compel  almost  whatever  quantities  of 
energ>'  he  pleases  to  do  his  behests.  Not  domestic  animals, 
but  fire,  it  is  which  makes  man  lord  of  the  world.  When  man 
first  caused  the  solar  energy  stored  up  in  plants  to  explode 
and  catch  fire,  he  opened  up  for  himself  a  novel  source  of 
power,  and  thus  lent  such  an  extraordinary  impetus  to  the 
conversion  of  energy  that  we  are  quite  entitled  to  speak  of 
things  in  general  having  taken  a  new  turn,  and  to  date  the 
mastery  of  nature  from  the  kindling  of  the  first  fire. 

Now,  in  process  of  time,  but  more  particularly  during  the 
last  hundred  years,  this  new  principle  has  been  developed  to 
such  an  enormous  extent  that  we  may  even  now  say  that  in 
future  the  old  animal  principles  of  struggle  for  existence  will 
be  subordinate  to  others ;  for  already  it  is  possible  to  see  almost 
unlimited  vistas  of  progress  opening  up,  whereas,  as  has  just 
been  shown,  nature  has  everywhere  set  bounds  to  the  animal 
struggle  for  existence. 

No  one  doubts  that  machinery  has  revolutionized  the  world, 
and  what  has  now  to  be  proved  is  that,  in  accordance  with 
the  (jeneral  rules  of  the  slruygh  for  existence,  a  machinery 
victory  is  the  only  possible  victory  which  man  can  still  icin 
to  day. 

At  present  ahnost  all  the  so-called  natural  forces  have  been 
pres.sed  into  our  service,  but  in  reality  we  still  continue  to  use 
solar  energy.  The  water  which  is  drawn  up  by  the  sun  and 
gradnally  Hows  back  again  to  the  sea  drives  our  mills.  The 
woods  which  grew  \ip  in  the  sunshine  of  prehistoric  times,  eon- 
verted  into  coal,  propel  our  railway's,  steamers,  and  electric 
works,  or,  chaiiged  into  benzoin,  our  motor-cars  and  airships. 

These  are  only  a  few  instances  out  of  many,  and  the  original 
aiiKJiuit  of  energ}'  which  man  can  pass  direct  through  his  own 


48  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

body  has  long  been  far  exceeded  by  the  amount  which  he  in- 
cludes in  his  own  sphere  of  influence  alone.  In  Germany, 
for  example,  a  human  being  consumes  physically  between  two 
and  three,  thousand  calories  daily,  whereas  with  the  aid  of 
machinery  he  consumes  on  an  average  from  twenty  to  thirty 
thousand. 

A  great  deal  has  been  achieved  in  this  way,  but  man  can 
still  make  scarcely  any  use  of  solar  energy  except  indirectly 
by  taking  it  from  plants,  from  waterfalls,  from  coal  seams,  or 
from  petroleum  springs.  These  sources  of  energy  are  con- 
siderable, and  not  yet  fully  exploited,  but  they  are  smaller 
and  smaller  in  comparison  with  the  energy  which  radiates 
from  the  sun  to  the  earth,  and  most  of  which  never  assumes 
forms  in  which  we  could  easily  utilize  it,  but  remains  as  heat, 
and  in  this  way  radiates,  unused,  back  into  space  again. 

In  theory  man  can  directly  transmute  solar  energy  into  la- 
bor, and  that  in  practice  he  does  not  do  this  is  partly  to  be 
accounted  for  by  his  having  found  comparatively  large  quan- 
tities of  energy  conveniently  accessible  in  the  form  of  water- 
falls, pit  coal,  woods,  etc.  But  in  the  meantime,  at  any  rate, 
he  still  needs  plants,  because  they  are  the  only  machines  in 
which  solar  energy  is  transmuted  into  food.  Only  in  plants 
does  carbon  unite  with  water  to  form  sugar,  and  if  we  could 
succeed  in  producing  sugar  and  other  food-stuffs  without  the 
help  of  plants,  then  we  could  really  boast  of  having  conquered 
plants.  Indeed,  we  should  not  only  have  "distilled"  life  from 
the  four  elements,  but  at  the  same  time  solved  the  problem 
of  the  homunculus.  True,  not  a  single  human  being  would 
be  manufactured  straight  away  in  the  retort,  but  there  would 
be  sustenance  for  thousands  of  millions;  and  as  soon  as  sus- 
tenance is  at  hand,  the  spawn  is  not  long  in  following.  The 
last  thing  which  the  blind  Fmist  realizes  is  that  man  cannot 
be  made  happy,  but  it  is  enough  to  open  up  a  free  way  for  a 
free  people.^ 

1  See  the  last  act  of  "Faust."  Part  IT.  The  speeeh  alluded  to  ia  the 
one  beginning,  "Ein  Sumpf  zieht  am  (Jebirge  bin," — Translator. 


WAR  AND  THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  LIFE  49 

Faust  would  fain  wrest  new  ground  from  the  sea,  and  not 
rob  others  of  what  the}'  have  already  occupied;  and  the  doc- 
trine of  rightful  or  wrongful  struggle  may  be  summarized 
thus:  wherever  new  ground  is  won,  struggle  is  justifiable, 
life-promoting,  and  good;  but  wherever  it  merely  dims  <it  de- 
priving others  of  something,  it  is  UNJUSTIFIABLE,  death- 
dealing,  and  bad. 

For  thousands  of  years  the  Netherlands  carried  on  their 
slow,  life-promoting  struggle  against  water,  and  at  tlie  same 
time  were  a  model  of  what  a  peacefully  advancing  people 
should  be.  It  would  be  more  than  usually  regrettable  were 
a  fine  modern  struggle  such  as  this  to  be  ended  now  by  force. 

§24. — Creative  Struggle  and  War  of  Extermination 

It  is  for  us  now  to  carry  on  in  principle  and  on  the  largest 
possible  battle-field  this  struggle  for  new  ground  which  the 
Netherlands  with  their  primitive  means  could  begin  only  in 
the  literal  sense  of  the  words. 

Moltke/  when  a  young  man,  once  laid  it  down  that  to  in- 
crease population  by  one  fourth  in  peace  was  of  at  least  as 
much  value  as  to  comjuer  a  province  one  fourth  as  large  as 
the  country.  We  might  calculate  on  this  basis  the  exteut  of 
possible  coniiuests  in  the  war  of  tiie  future;  and  to  any  one 
who  does  so  and  who  once  realizes  the  billions  of  human  beings 
implicated  therein,  and  moreover  realizes  that  every  one  of 
the  present  belligerents  might,  so  to  speak,  conquer  the  entire 
globe,  the  present  cat  tights  -  with  cannon  in  which  at  most  a 
few  millions  are  moved  hither  and  thither  will  seem  as  insig- 
nificant as  they  really  are. 

Once  solar  energy  is  rationally  exploited  and  made  to  serve 

1  Letter  from  Moltke,  written  in  1840. 

'^  By  the  expreanion  "cat  tights"  no  disrespect  is  intended  toward  the 
victims  of  tlie  Imtllcs  now  in  progress,  entailing  as  they  ilo  siuti  trial:* 
and  sacrifices  upon  the  individual  combatant;  but  despite  all  tlic  respect 
we  owe  those  taking  part  in  them,  such  combats  are,  frcmi  the  point  of 
view  of  natural  science,  cat  fights,  scrimmages  for  the  most  Lnviai  of 
ubiecta. 


50  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

us  directl}^  like  a  domestic  animal,  then  every  acre  of  land, 
even  land  which  at  present  scarcely  supports  a  single  human 
being,  will  be  able  to  provide  sustenance  for  thousands.^  As 
regards  direct  utilization  of  solar  energy  as  food  not  much 
has  been  achieved  hitherto,  but  apart  from  this  we  do  already 
utilize  considerable  quantities  of  extraneous  energy.  The 
world  is  inhabited  by  one  and  a  half  billion  human  beings, 
each  of  whom  consumes  every  year  not  quite  one  million 
calories.  Now,  the  world's  total  production  of  pit  coal  is 
about  one  and  a  half  billion  tons ;  that  is,  one  ton  of  coal  per 
inhabitant  annually.  As  each  ton  produces  about  eight  mil- 
lion calories,  it  follows  that  by  means  of  his  coal-driven  ma- 
chines man  already  works  about  eight  times  as  much  as  with 
his  arms.-  If  we  include  the  utilization  of  water-power,  of 
animal  labor,  and  of  several  other  minor  sources  of  power,  it 
is  not  too  much  to  say  that  even  now  fully  ten  times  as  much 
labor  is  done  by  machinery  in  this  world  as  by  man.  More- 
over, every  extension  of  coal-mining,  every  fresh  source  of 
energy  opened  up,  confers  increased  vital  powers  upon  man ; 
and,  were  social  conditions  organized  on  anything  approaching 
a  reasonable  basis,  might  also  mean  a  saving  of  labor.  Were 
the  seventeen  million  horse-power  energy  contained  in-  the 
Falls  of  Niagara  profitably  emploj^ed,  about  one  tliird  of  all 
human  labor  could  be  performed  by  this  means  alone. 

Obviously,  with  such  forces  the  burden  of  overworked  man 
could  easily  be  lightened,  as  indeed  has  already  been  pointed 
out.  (Cf.  §  15.)  I  have  also  indicated  the  reason  why  tliis 
has  hitherto  not  been  done.  All  these  problems,  moreover,  no 
longer  belong  to  the  dim  distant  future,  but,  at  all  events  in 

1  To  this  subject  I  have  already  referred  in  paragraphs  18  and  21, 
where  I  quoted  exact  figures. 

2  A  very  perfunctory  calculation,  for  neither  man  nor  machinery 
transmutes  into  profitable  labor  the  whole  amount  of  calories  received, 
and  in  both  cases  the  percentage  of  waste  differs.  The  above  estimate, 
however,  is  sufficiently  accurate  to  enable  the  reader  to  survey  the 
general  results;  and  it  is  beyond  doubt  that  even  now  the  sum  total  of 
labor  performed  by  machinery  many  times  exceeds  the  sum  total  of  that 
performed  by  man. 


WAR  AND  THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  LIFE  51 

principle,  are  already  solved,  and  only  awaiting  practical  ap- 
plication. Thermo-electricity  enables  us  to  make  direct  and 
rational  use  of  solar  energy,  and  the  researches  of  modern 
chemists,  in  particular  of  Emil  Fischer  and  his  pupils,  have 
already  proved  that  the  artificial  production  of  food-stuft's  is 
possible.  Already  we  have  succeeded  in  artificially  producing 
most  food-stufi's,  in  fact,  ever^^thing  except  the  synthesis  of 
albumen.  Of  late  years,  however,  we  have  made  great  strides 
towards  producing  this  also. 

But  we  cannot  yet  make  practical  use  of  these  experiments 
in  the  laboratory,  and  in  order  to  do  this  we  have  still  need 
of  strutiple.  Our  object  is  within  sight ;  on  this  round  ball 
there  is  still  room  for  great  deeds,^  and  wherever  we  see  "the 
purposeless  forces  of  undisciplined  elements"  at  work,  we 
exclaim  with  Goethe: 

"Hier  wnfjt  mcin  Geist  sich  selbst  zu  iiberfliegen, 
Hier  mucht'  icU  klanpfen,  dies  moclit'  ieli  besiegt'U !"  - 

Compared  with  this  marvelous  human  struggle,  how  pitiable 
does  war  appear!  What  has  it  to  do  with  the  struggle  for 
existence?  Assuredly  nothing,  save  for  the  fact  that  it  is  per- 
petually destroying  a  fraction,  even  if  only  a  small  fraction, 
of  mankind  without  in  reality  helping  in  the  struggle.  It  is 
therefore  simply  and  solely  due  to  degeneration,  as  for  that 
matter  we  have  always  considered  it  in  the  case  of  animals,  to 
which  we  adopt  an  altogether  more  impartial  attitude.  In  this 
human  struggle  alone  have  we  an  innate  right  to  engage — a 
struggle  requiring  all  our  physical,  mental  and  moral  energies ; 
and  to  "do  our  bit"  in  it  is  no  less  our  inalienable  right, 
our  bounden  duty. 

War  is  right.  Not  yesterday's  obsolete  war,  that  of  man 
against  man,  but  rather  a  new  life — dispensing  war  for  man 's 

1  "N"oeh  immer  gewlihrt  der  Erdkrois  Raum  zu  grossen  Taton"  ate 
the  words  in  llie  text. — Traiislator. 

-Roughly:  "Here  does  my  spirit  dare  even  to  transcend  itself;  here 
is  sometliing  wortli  figlitin^  for,  here  something  worth  overcoming."' — 
Tranalator. 


52  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

mastery  over  the  earth  and  its  forces,  an  ever-youthful  war, 
of  which  we  have  probably  not  yet  fought  out  a  millionth 
part,  but  which  our  era  is  preparing  to  tackle  with  quite 
different  methods  from  those  which  have  prevailed  in  any 
previous^  era.  Already,  as  I  have  hinted,  we  can  catch  a 
glimpse  of  wonderful  conquests  over  nature — conquests  por- 
tending victories  such  as  no  human  being  ever  yet  won.  And 
here  comes  some  one  aaid  insists  upon  our  going  into  raptures 
over  civilized  human  beings  crawling  about  on  the  ground  and 
shooting  at  one  another ! 

Even  Faust  realized  that  a  higher  type  of  human  being 
can  find  satisfaction  only  in  struggle  with  nature.  He,  too, 
had  dallied  with  love  and  waged  wars  for  love.  As  philoso- 
pher he  had  dealt  in  the  wisdom  of  the  ancients,  and  as  mer- 
chant with  money  and  merchandize.  In  war  and  peace  he 
had  rescued  countries  and  their  rulers,  and  thus  he  would 
seem  to  have  achieved  the  utmost  that  is  possible  for  any  one 
in  this  historic  world.  Yet  on  looking  back  over  it  all  he  con- 
fesses that  all  is  vanity  and  vexation  of  spirit ;  and  not  until 
he  turns  to  the  simple  task  of  building  a  dike  in  order  that  a 
new  mankind  may  have  new  homesteads,  does  he  experience  the 
divine  bliss  of  creation.  It  is  this  creative  straggle  which  we 
have  to  substitute  for  the  struggle  for  extermination. 

Euiil  Fischer  has  produced  an  artificial  substitute  for  sugar, 
and  may  perhaps  find  one  for  albumen.  He  is  the  founder, 
or  at  any  rate  the  forerunner,  of  the  new  era  of  humanity, 
and  all  generations  to  come  will  gratefully'  refer  to  hiin  as 
one  of  the  great  coufiuerors  in  the  struggle  for  the  foundations 
of  life,  lie  really  practised  that  "divine  art"  of  which 
Archimedes  speaks.  Professor  Haber,  who  has  utilized  his 
scientific  knowledge  for  the  manufacture  of  asphyxiating 
bombs,  will  perhaps  not  be  forgotten  either;  but  he  need  not 
even  dream  of  becoming  as  famous  as  Archimedes,  "defend- 
ing his  native  soil  against  the  Roman  legions."  ^  First  of  all, 
that  was  two  thousand  years  ago,  and,  secondly,  all   Archi- 

1  Suliiller,  "Archimedea  and  the  School-boy." 


WAR  AND  THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  LIFE  53 

medes  really  did  was  to  defend  Syracuse  wlieu  it  was  be- 
sieged, and  in  so  doing  he  made  no  use  whatever  of  poison, 
which  was  still  only  used  by  certain  classes  of  people;  and, 
finally,  the  fame  of  Archimedes  does  not  rest  upon  his  having 
defended  his  native  soil,  which  was  allied  with  Carthage  for 
two  whole  years  against  European  ideas,  then  embodied  or  at 
any  rate,  dimly  conceived  by  Rome.  It  rests  upon  the  fact 
that  he  was  the  first  real  physicist,  and  therefore  all  life-dis- 
pensing victories  of  the  future  may  be  traced  back  to  his 
preparatory  work. 

4 — FREEDOM    AND    NATURAL   COMPULSION 

§  25. — Conformity  to  Law  and  Unfettered  Harmony 

It  is  the  custom  to  say  that  the  struggle  for  existence  selects 
from  among  living  creatures  those  best  suited  to  withstand  it. 
Such  selection,  however,  takes  place  not  only  in  the  animate, 
but  also  in  the  inanimate,  world,  and  it  is  quite  easy  to  see 
that,  after  all,  suitability  for  a  particular  purpose  and  con- 
formity to  law  are  identical,  except  that  we  are  accustomed 
to  consider  them  from  different  points  of  view.  Thus  we 
migiit  say  there  was  "suitability"  in  the  fact  that,  owing  to 
the  earth's  comparatively  slow  rotation,  centrifugal  force  is 
smaller  than  force  of  attraction,  otherwise  everything  on 
earth  would  be  hurled  out  into  boundless  space  beyond  hope 
of  recovery.  Further  reflection  shows  us,  however,  that  there 
is  nothing  really  "suitable"  about  this  for  any  purpose,  but 
tiiat  at  best  it  "could  not  be  otherwise." 

Wherever  centrifugal  force  is  greater  than  force  of  gravity, 
no  central  body  at  all  can  be  formed ;  and  if  this  were  to  be 
the  case  throughout  the  cosmic  system,  then  there  would  be 
no  fixed  heavenly  bodies,  and  the  whole  world  would  be  dif- 
ferent from  what  it  now  is;  and  in  case  any  form  of  life  had 
developed,  it  nuist  have  ac(|uired  eiiuilibrium  with  the  help  of 
qi\ite  other  forces,  and  imist  therefore  have  been  (luite  differ- 
ent from  what  it  actually  is.     But  if  it  were  to  exist,  it  must 


54  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  Yv^AR 

of  course  have  been  also  adapted  to  this  other  kind  of  con- 
stellation of  force.  Conversely,  no  one  need  wonder  that  the 
shape  of  this  world's  mountains  and  edifices  as  well  as  the 
rotation  of  water  and  of  life  should  conform  in  their  smallest 
details  and  in  every  respect  to  gravitation ;  otherwise  all  these 
things  could  not  justify  their  existence,  or,  to  put  it  more 
accurately,  could  not  exist  at  all. 

Similarly  with  regard  to  every  detail  of  the  organic  world. 
Undoubtedly  it  is  important  for  vegetable  feeders  that  there 
should  be  plants,  and  for  beasts  of  prey  that  there  should  be 
prey ;  but  if,  after  all,  there  were  no  plants,  then  no  such 
animals  as  we  now  know  could  have  been  formed,  and  if  there 
w^ere  no  hares,  there  w^oukl  be  no  justification  for  the  exist- 
ence of  foxes. 

Thus  it  happens  that*  to  any  one  who  thinks  along  lines  of 
natural  science,  this  unity  of  the  world,  which  used  to  amaze 
every  one  who  contemplated  it,  seems  a  matter  of  course. 
The  natural  scientist  sees  no  cause  for  astonishment  in  "every- 
thing being  welded  together  to  form  one  whole,"  knowinir  as 
he  does  that  this  conformity  to  law,  which  strikes  us  as  har- 
mony, must  ever  recur  under  the  influence  of  the  all-powerful 
force  of  nature. 

Neither  can  man  avoid  this  dependence  upon  others.  For 
instance,  in  a  country  in  which  there  were  no  subjects  there 
could  also  be  no  kings.  Nevertheless,  in  this  harmony  of  na- 
ture man  produces  the  efl'ect  of  something  out  of  place,  for 
he  with  his  free  will  takes  upon  him  to  withstand  the  com- 
pelling force  of  nature.    And  this,  moreover,  he  is  able  to  do. 

j\luch  destruction  has  been  wrought  owing  to  this  freedom 
of  man.  He  has  everywhere  carried  pain  and  grief,  unrest 
and  confusion,  into  the  safe  recesses  of  "perfect"  nature,  war 
between  man  and  man  being  only  one  of  the  many  forms  of 
error  into  which  the  human  race  has  fallen.  But  as  earnest  of 
good  to  come,  man  cherishes  the  belief  in  a  new  haraionious 
order  of  things,  which  he  himself  will  create  according  to  his 
own  free  will.     True,  animals'  instinct  can  never  err,  while 


WAR  AND  THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  LIFE  55 

with  man,  error  and  endeavors  are  inseparable.  But  it  is  not 
less  true  that  endeavor  is  made  possible  by  error,  and  this 
fact  is  worth  more  to  us  than  any  mechanically  arranged 
harmonious  order  of  tilings,  however  perfect.  With  man  came 
sin  into  the  world,  but  likewise  virtue  ;  slavery,  but  also  liberty ; 
war,  but  also  sweet  peace.  How  can  this  apparent  dualism  be? 
How  could  man  rise  as  it  were  above  the  laws  to  which  he 
owes  his  being?  How  was  it  possible  for  him  to  overcome  the 
force  of  nature  ? 

§  26. — The  Evolution  of  the  Brain 

That  there  is  some  connection  between  this  liberation  of 
man  and  the  evolution  of  the  brain  cannot  reasonably  be 
doubted.  It  is  by  his  brain  and  by  his  brain  only  that  he  is 
distinguished  from  every  other  living  creature.  For  all  our 
other  physical  attributes  there  is  not  only  some  analogy  in 
the  animal  kingdom,  but,  as  modern  comparative  anatomy  has 
shown,  almost  all  of  them  have  remained  comparatively  primi- 
tive even,  and  most  of  all  the  extremities,  although  the  con- 
trary always  used  to  be  supposed.  The  human  brain  alone 
has  developed  by  leaps  and  bounds  and  with  unexampled 
rapidity  until  its  size  (that- is,  as  an  organ  of  the  intelligence  ^ 
compared  with  the  weight  of  the  bod}'),  is  about  a  hundred 
per  cent,  greater  than  that  of  the  brains  of  all  living  creatures, 
even  those  of  the  highest  order. 

This  sudden  advance,  which  seems  doubly  enigmatic  when 
we  consider  how  particularly  slow  and  steady  has  been  the 
development  of  the  brain  in  other  living  creatures,  must  be 
explained.  All  living  creatures,  as  we  have  seen,  are  in- 
tended to  absorb  the  utmost  possible  amount  of  energy,  which 
with  lower  animals  amounts  to  eating  as  much  as  possible. 

iTliia  orr;an  of  the  intelliprence  does  not  mean  aometliing  merely 
proportional.  It  may  be  stated  somewhat  as  follows:  Brain  weight  = 
al  plus  ir^  plus  r?3  plus  r,  I  standing:  for  the  length  of  the  animal,  and 
i  for  its  intcili-jrem-e,  and  a,  h,  and  c  heing  constant  quantities  to  he 
empirically  fixed.  Now  the  limb  i  in  man  has  become  greater  by  leaps 
and  bounds. 


56  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

They  achieve  this  by  having  developed  organs  of  sense  for 
finding  things,  legs  for  running,  arms  for  clasping,  mouths 
for  swallowing,  teeth  for  biting,  glands  for  digesting,  and  so 
on.  Thus  the  animal  body,  with  its  manifold  and  apparently 
many-sided  organs,  came  into  existence,  but  in  order  that  it 
may  work  as  a  complete  whole,  the  legs  must  really  run  iu 
the  direction  in  which  the  nose  ha-s  scented  prey,  and  the 
mouth  nuist  snap  where  the  eyes  see  prey;  in  short,  every 
muscle  of  the  body  must  do  what  the  organs  of  sense  require 
it  to  do.  Some  means  of  communication  is  therefore  necessary 
between  the  organs  of  perception  and  the  organs  of  action. 
Hence  the  nervous  system  arose,  and,  in  the  higher  animals, 
for  reasons  which  it  would  take  too  long  to  explain  here,  the 
brain,  not  as  an  end  in  itself,  but  as  something  of  secondary 
importance.  The  brain  was  originally  merely  the  servant  of 
the  organs  connected  with  the  business  of  feeding.  In  this 
capacity  it  was  certainly  important,  but  had  no  independent 
influence  on  the  real  significance  of  life. 

This  dependence  of  the  brain  on  the  organs  connected  with 
food  persisted.  Whenever  the  organs  of  sense  or  prehensile 
organs  improved,  there  was  a  corresponding  improvement  in 
the  brain.  It  readily  kept  pace  with  the  development  of  the 
body,  but  could  not  advance  a  single  step  beyond  it.  How 
indeed  could  a  special  organ  have  been  developed  for  under- 
standing speech  if  man  had  had  neither  a  mouth  to  speak  with 
nor  ears  to  hear  with?  The  development  of  the  hrain  thus 
tvos  and  is  dependent  on  the  development  of  organs  the  num- 
ber of  which  is,  after  all,  limited. 

Even  Aristotle  knew  that  no  animal  with  horns  or  antlers 
has  also  the  teeth  of  a  beast  of  prey.  In  other  words,  that 
animals  are  provided  with  only  one  means  of  defense.  Simi- 
larly, animals  have  either  good  eyes  or  good  noses:  they  are 
"seeing  animals"  or  "smelling  animals,"  but  never  both  at 
once.  This  economy  is  necessary,  for  if  an  animal  were  over- 
provided  with  organs,  it  would  no  longer  be  able  properly  to 
fulfil  the   purpose  for  which,   after  all,   it   exists — feeding. 


WAR  AND  THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  LIFE     57 

Thus  throughout  all  these  thousands  of  years  the  brain  con- 
tiiuied  faithfully  to  serve  its  master  until  the  revolution  came 
which  tirst  liberated  it  and  then  placed  it  on  the  throne. 

Man  alone  has  undergone  this  revolution,  for  man  alone  by 
grasping  a  stone  converted  his  unarmed  hand  into  an  ariued 
one.  In  so  doing  he  may  not  have  created  any  new  bodily 
organ,  but,  as  Kapp,^  unfortunately  now  almost  forgotten, 
phrases  it,  he  planned  an  organic  extension,  thus  acquiring 
ncAv  capacities,  just  as  if  he  had  really  added  another  organ 
to  his  body.  But — and  this  distinction  is  profoundly  signifi- 
cajit — this  acquisition  does  not  inconvenience  its  owner.  If 
he  no  longer  needs  his  new  organ,  he  can  lay  it  aside  or  even 
exchange  it  for  other  organs,  and  is  thus  gradually  enabled 
to  acquire  a  multiplicity  of  organs  such  as  no  living  creature 
\vould  ever  be  able  to  carry  about. 

The  human  brain  has  been  influenced  to  a  quite  extraordi- 
nary extent  by  this  circumstance.  These  new  organs  cannot 
fail  to  affect  and  perfect  the  brain,  just  as  the  old  organs  did; 
but  whereas  the  brain  used  to  be  forced  to  wait  until  the  new 
organs  were  there,  now  it  acquires  its  new  organs  itself,  and 
perfects  itself  through  them  by  its  own  force.  By  thus  "cre- 
ating organs  for  itself,"  therefore,  the  brain  acquires  freedom 
and  independence,  first  of  all  from  its  body,  be  it  noted. 

All  animals  depend  greatly  upon  physical  advantages,  but 
in  man  these  are  of  comparatively  little  moment.  Of  what 
use  are  the  best  eyes,  since  they  cannot  do  what  comparatively 
inferior  telescopes  and  microscopes  can  do?  Of  what  use  is 
a  good  nose  or  tongue  to  us  in  comparison  with  the  benefits 

1  Kapp's  "Outlines  of  TecliniL-al  Philosophy"  ("Crundliiiieu  eitier 
I'hilosopliie  der  Technilc"),  1877.  G.  Westermann :  Bruns\viL-k  Pp. 
29-^0.  C'f.  also  Noire's  "Tools  and  Their  Importance  in  the  History 
of  Human  Evolution"  ("Das  Werkzeu^  und  seine  Bedeutung  fiir  die 
Entwicklungsfjeschiehte  der  Menschleit") ,  1880.  J.  Diemer:  Mayence. 
Both  these  works  are  based  very  largely  on  L.  Geiger's  "Origin  and 
Development  of  Human  Speech  and  Reason"  ("L'rsprung  und  Entwick- 
lung  der  menschlichon  Sprache  und  V^ernunft")  :  Stuttgart,  1868.  This 
idea,  however,  was  first  expressed  by  Ferdinand  J^assalle,  who  iu  1880 
said,  "Absolute  self-sufliciency  is  the  lowest  pitch  of  humanity." 


58  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

conferred  on  us  by  chemistry?  Onr  telephones  and  micro- 
phones enable  us  to  hear  farther  and  better,  our  mechanical 
scales  and  other  metrical  instruments  to  feel  more  than  any 
animal  with  the  best  special  organs  of  sense.  For  what  do 
we  need  great  physical  strength  when  we  have  steam  hammers, 
hydraulic  presses,  and  giant  cranes  to  work  for  us?  Or  speed, 
with  railways  and  motor-cars  to  run  for  us?  We  need  learn 
neither  to  swim  nor  to  fly,  since  our  steamers  and  submarines, 
our  aeroplanes  and  airships  can  do  so.  Every  achievement  of 
excellence  produced  at  any  time  during  millions  of  years  in  the 
animal  kingdom  man's  young  brain  has  likewise  produced  and 
brought  to  greater  perfection.^  We  see  more  clearly  than  fal- 
cons, smell  better  than  dogs,  hear  farther  than  elephants,  and 
have  a  finer  sense  of  touch  than  bats'  wings.  W^e  are  stronger 
than  the  rhinoceros,  while  in  speed  M'c  easily  excel  the  horse 
on  earth,  the  eagle  in  the  air,  and  the  shark  in  the  water.^ 

§  27. — The  Autonomy  of  the  Brain 

From  henceforth  the  brain,  now  free  and  powerful,  is  the 
decisive  factor  in  the  struggle  for  existence,  for  to-day  in- 
tellectual struggles  are  of  more  importance  than  hand-to-hand 
fighting.  Even  if  all  the  dwellers  upon  earth  stuck  knives 
into  one  another,  they  could  not,  if  the  Avorst  came  to  the 
worst,  do  more  than  kill  one  another  all  out,  and  there  would 
he  a  billion  and  a  half  dead,  which,  after  all,  is  scarcely  con- 
ceivable. If,  however,  a  single  person  succeeded  in  directly 
utilizing  solar  energy  for  the  production  of  food,  this  would 
mean  enabling  a  billion  and  a  half  living  beings  to  live  (that 
is,  a  thousand  times  as  many),  which  will  one  day  actually 
come  to  pass.^     Truly  our  tools  are  weapons,  but  to  be  used 

1  I']ven  tfelmlioltz  once  said,  "If  an  optician  were  to  brinjj  mo  an  eye, 
I  would  refuse  it  as  bungliufr  work." 

2  Our  airships,  however,  cannot  yet  overtake  the  falcon,  and  the 
dolj)liin  is  proI)ahly  swifter  tlian  even  our  latest  racing  yaelits. 

3  The  lliree  thousand  billions  mentioned  above  are  conceivable,  and 
the  billion  and  a  half  mentioned  here  are  probable,  indeed,  in  so  far  as 
such  a  statement  can  be  made  as  to  the  future,  they  are  a  certainty. 


WAR  AND  THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  LIFE  59 

against  nature  and  not  against  man.  Our  first  tool,  a  stone, 
was  a  weapon,  but  a  weapon  in  tlie  struggle  for  food,  and  a 
tool  for  turning  up  the  soil.^  Afterward  this  weapon  for  at- 
tacking earth  and  wood  was  used  against  animals,  and  finally 
against  man  also. 

But  this  is  contrary  not  merely  to  morality,  but  also  to 
truth,  for  we  are  not  simply  a  part  of  nature.  In  man's  small 
brain  the  whole  of  "creation"  was  pondered  over  and  imi- 
tated, and  as  a  result  of  the  freedom  thus  achieved  we  are 
enabled  to  "live  according  to  laws  of  our  own."  Therefore 
it  is  that  human  action  di/fers  from  any  natural  event,  and 
therefore  it  is  that  we  must  not  consider  war  in  the  light  of 
an  earthquale.  Even  were  it  true,  which,  as  has  been  shown, 
it  is  not,  that  war  is  nature's  only  outlet,  this  natural  com- 
pulsion would  still  not  apply  to  us,  for  man  ought  not  even 
to  draw  his  sword  except  of  his  own  free  will  and  with  a  sense 
of  his  responsibility  in  so  doing.  The  struggle  for  existence 
is  no  excuse,  nor  does  it  afford  any  analogy. 

Even  the  usages  of  war  unconsciously  admit  this,  for  any 
one  who  wants  to  fight  to-day  must  arm  others,  since  an 
isolated  person,  be  he  never  so  brave,  is  too  weak.  Arming 
others  and  winning  allies,  even  among  one's  own  people,  can 
be  done  only  by  persuasion,  by  influencing  men's  minds;  that 
is,  by  words.  As  this  present  war  clearly  shows,  and  as  its 
issue  will  show  still  more  clearly,  therefore,  nothing  is  so  im- 
portant and  essential  as  persuasion,  as  intellectual  struggle. 

Between  one  and  two  thousand  years  after  the  introduction  of  the 
synthetic  reproduction  of  food-stuU's,  tbey  will  have  been  readied,  and 
then  the  world  in  •.'eiieial  would  he  as  tliii.kl\-  populated  as  a  garden  city. 

[In  England  and  Germany  a  billion  =^ a  million  millions  (1,000,000,- 
OOtl.OOO;  in  Frame  and  America,  however,  the  word  (French  milliard) 
generally  means  a  thoiisand  millions  =  1,000,000,000.  In  the  case  of 
the  first  figure  Dr.  Nicolai  uses  the  word  milliarde,  and  in  tlie  case  of  the 
second  figure  the  word  billion. — Translator.] 

1  Cf.  Lazarus  Geiger's  "Origin  and  Development  of  Human  Speech  and 
I\Pason"  ("Ursprung  and  Fiitwickiung  der  menschlichen  Spraclie  und 
Vernunft").  J.  G.  Cotta:  Stuttgart,  18G8.  Geiger  shows  that  the 
most  ancient  tool  was  used  for  turning  up  the  soil. 


60  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

even  if  such  struggle  should  appear  to  be  temporaril}-  in 
abeyance.  In  any  case,  we  must  never  lose  faith  in  the  free- 
dom and  omnipotence  of  the  intellect;  and  even  now  all  who 
hope  for  any  improvement  must  in  their  heart  of  hearts  be 
convinced  that  the  power  of  persuasion  is  mightier  than  that 
of  the  brute  force. 

No  one  should  take  this  comfort  to  his  soul  more  than 
the  friends  of  peace,  forsaken  as  they  may  at  present  seem. 
It  has  been  somewhat  scornfully  said  of  them  that  such  a 
handful  of  men  attempting  to  withstand  the  war  giant  are 
like  a  small  dog  barking  at  the  engine  of  an  express-train  go- 
ing at  full  speed :  the  engine  would  run  straight  over  the  dog 
without  being  affected.  No  doubt,  for  the  dog  has  at  most 
one  millionth  part  as  much  living  force  as  the  express-train, 
and  if  man  could  do  nothing  but  throw  his  body  in  front  of 
threatening  evil  his  power  would  not  avail  much  either. 
Man's  will,  however,  is  not  bound  down  to  the  strength  sup- 
plied him  by  his  body,  but  he  has  the  power  of  releasing  al- 
most indefinite  forces.  Only  think.  One  screw  in  the  rails 
loosened,  and  the  whole  stately  express  engine  is  a  heap  of 
dust.     No  dog  can  do  this ;  but  man  can. 

The  influence  which  man  exerts  upon  his  fellow-man  cannot 
be  expressed  in  terms  of  energy.  We  know  only  that  there  is 
no  limit  to  the  power  of  a  word. 

"Johannes  Huss  und  andre  Ketzer  brieten, 
Ihr  Wort  jedoeh  erklang  von  Ort  zu  Orte: 
Welch  eine  Tugend  ist  die  Kunst  der  Worte." 

(Koughly:  "John  Huss  and  other  heretics  burned;  yet  tlieir  words 
resuunded  from  place  to  place.  Ah!  the  virtue  lyino  in  tlie  art  of 
words  I " — Translator. ) 

Christ,  Darwin,  Luther,  and  Voltaire  all  knew  the  art  of 
words,  and  they  were  to  their  time  as  a  lightning  flash  setting 
in  motion  the  accumulated  stores  of  energy  of  an  entire  world. 
And  the  power  of  that  one  small  word  "war."  how  it  trans- 

1  Platen,  prologue  to  the  "  Abassiden,"  1829 ;  lines  102-104. 


WAR  AND  THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  LIFE     61 

forms  all  Europe  and  forces  all  mankind  to  abandon  their  ac- 
customed ways  for  the  sake  of  some  new  and  unknown  goal ! 
This  we  all  felt,  to  our  joy  and  sorrow,  in  the  summer  of  1914. 

"In  the  beginning  was  the  word,"  always,  and  the  word 
alone,  for  the  power  is  always  in  the  hands  of  the  "old,"  and 
the  "new"  at  first  never  had  any  weapon  save  the  word. 
But  the  word  need  only  be  left  to  itself,  and  as  yet  it  has  always 
come  off  victorious.  And  this  conquest  of  the  word  which  is 
carried  away  by  the  wind  over  all  worldly  power  is,  after  all, 
merely  what  Kant  meant  by  the  autonomy  of  practical  reason 
and  the  dignity  of  mankind.  True,  there  is  an  essential  dif- 
ference between  the  autonomy  of  practical  reason  and  that  of 
the  brain,  to  which  alone  I  referred  above;  for  that  "abso- 
lute autonomy"  insisted  npon  by  Kant  cannot  exist  save  as 
an  idea  pure  and  simple.  The  antonomy  of  the  brain  is  like- 
wise limited,  but  it  would  be  quite  enough  if  wo  made  full 
use  of  such  autonom.y  as  it  has. 

In  order  to  have  finished  with  war,  this  freedom  of  the  true 
natural  scientist,  the  freedom  of  the  thinking  brain,  would  be 
(|uite  sufficient ;  and  Frederick,  in  this  respect  really  the  Great, 
was  quite  right  in  saying,  "If  my  soldiers  began  to  think, 
not  one  would  remain  in  the  ranks."  ITnhappily,  however, 
Schopenhauer  also  seems  to  have  been  right  in  saying  that 
"^len  are  not  thinking  beings." 

Schopenhauer,  however,  was  a  pessimist,  and  to-day  there 
is  cause  rather  for  optimism,  for  we  now  know  at  any  rate 
one  tiling  that  Schopenhauer  did  not  know  for  a  fact:  that 
even  if  men  do  not  think,  nevertheless  their  hraiiis  are  capable 
of  thinkiiu).  It  is  one  of  the  most  interesting  facts  which 
modern  brain  j)hysiologists  have  taught  us  that  the  brains 
of  animals  and  man  contain  more  extensive  capacities  than  any 
that  have  ever  been  evolved  from  them.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
the  brain  is  more  developed  than  the  soul,  which  is,  after  all, 
only  what  is  to  be  expected,  for  the  instrument  must  first  be 
there  before  any  one  can  play  upon  it.  A  calculating-machine, 
for  example,  already  contains  within  its  iron  framework  the 


62  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

calculations  481  X  1617  =  777,777,  and  that  5621  X  13,857 
=  77,777,777,  although  neither  may  ever  have  been  actually 
made.  iSimilarly  in  every  brain  there  are  very  many  trains 
of  thoughts  ready  waiting  that  have  never  yet  been  used. 
Nowhere  is  more  striking  proof  of  this  atforded  than  in  the 
works  of  that  Russian  man  of  genius,  the  physiologist  Ivan  P. 
Pawlow,  works  which  open  up  an  entirely  fresh  train  of 
thought,  into  which,  however,  it  would  take  too  long  to  enter 
now.  To  make  my  meaning  clear  two  examples  will  suffice. 
Animals,  particularly  monkeys,  which  are  much  with  human 
beings  can  learn  from  them  things  which  in  themselves  far 
transcend  the  limits  of  their  intelligence;  but  this  causes  no 
modification  of  their  brain,  which  consequently  must  already 
have  been  in  a  state  to  undertake  these  new  functions.  Again, 
the  Japanese,  who,  if  they  had  had  to  acquire  "Western  civiliza- 
tion by  their  own  exertions,  certainly  would  not  have  done  so 
under  hundreds,  perhaps  even  thousands,  of  years,  have  copied 
it  from  the  Europeans  in  only  a  few  years,  just  as  they  very 
quickly  copied  Chinese  civilization.  Moreover,  as  soon  as 
either  monkeys  or  Japanese  have  really  adopted  new  habits, 
the}'  adapt  themselves  to  these  perfectly.  '"^lissie"  smokes 
her  cigarette  no  less  elegantly  than  any  Tauentzien  giil, 
and  Soyen  Shaku  writes  books  on  ethics,  the  arguments  of 
which  lead  to  conclusions  precisely  similar  to  those  at  which 
German  ethical  writers  arrived  independently.^ 

Many  things  even  in  the  lives  of  nations  may  be  explained 
by  this  fact  of  there  bv?ing  all  manner  of  possibilities  latent 
in  the  brain  without  man  having  the  slightest  inkling  of  them. 
This  explains  both  the  conser^'ation  which  often  drives  us  to 
despair  by  its  persistent  adherence  to  antiquated  grooves,  and 
likewise  the  suddenness  with  which  a  new  order  of  things 
comes  about  the  moment  any  one  once  succeeds  in  opening  up 
these  "dead  tracks"  to  traffic  or  in  wresting  a  single  sound 
from  these  "slumbering  bowstrings." 

"What  we  know  of  brain  physiology,  therefore,  justifies  us 

1  Cf.  §  194. 


WAR  AND  THE  STRUC4GLE  FOR  LIFE  63 

in  being  optimistic.  However  noisy  and  self-assertive  the 
impulses  of  hate  may  be,  the  social  instincts,  their  opposites, 
our  oldest  inheritance,  have  long  been  lying  dormant  in  our 
brain,  although  as  yet  they  give  out  no  sound.  But  one  day 
they  will  be  touched,  and  then  their  sound  will  drown  that  of 
all  ghosts  of  the  past,  whether  medieval  or  modern.  That  we 
have  "dead  tracks"  in  us,  and  that  love  is  older  than  hate,  it 
is  the  purpose  of  Part  III  of  this  book  to  prove. 

§  28. — War  as  a  Free  11  urn  an  Act 

As  long,  however,  as  the  world  does  not  know  this,  and  does 
not  believe  that  nature's  organization,  of  which  each  person 
is  a  part,  makes  it  as  it  were  physically  incumbent  upon  us 
to  observe  certain  rules  and  mutual  relations,  so  long  might  it 
be  objected  that  just  because  man  is  free  and  not  subject  to 
natural  force,  he  can  make  war  because  he  chooses  to  do  so; 
and  that  as  he  ahvays  has  chosen  so  in  the  past,  he  will  con- 
tinue so  to  choose  in  the  future,  for  "there  always  was  and  al- 
ways will  be  war."  It  is  not  worth  while  examining  such 
arguments,  for  they  could  be  equally  well  urged  in  defense  of 
cannibalism  or  of  the  Stone  Age. 

Now,  war  has  indeed  been  called  logos,  ratio,  or  reason — not 
human  reason,  it  is  true,  but,  characteristically  enough,  only 
the  reason  or  argument  of  kings.  As  Caldcron  ^  scornfully 
wrote,  in  war  powder  and  shot  are  the  last  word  of  kings. 
But  kings  did  not  understand  irony,  and  '"uliinia  ratio 
regum"  was  inscribed  on  the  cannons  of  the  Roi  Soleil  of 
Versailles,  and  afterward  upon  those  of  Frederick  the  Great. 
In  France  the  National  Assembly,  on  August  17,  1791,  erased 
these  overbearing  words;  but  in  Prussia  they  still  remain, 
although,  strangely  enough,  only  on  field  guns,  intended  for 
attack,  and  not  on  fortitieation  guns,  intended  for  defense, 
thus  still  further  emphasizing  the  fact  that  cannon  are  not  the 
argument  of  man,  but  merely  that  of  kings. 

i("alfloron:  "Es  esta  vida  tndo  es  vordad  y  todo  mentiia"  ("Every- 
thing ill  this  life  is  tiulli  and  everytliing  uutruth"). 


64  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

These  words  are  not  only  engraved  on  tlie  cannon  for  tra- 
dition's sake,  but  only  a  few  months  ago,  Loofs.^  singularly 
enough  a  theologian,  referred  to  them  as  a  valuable  maxim. 
Ilerr  Loofs.  who  is  probably  a  good  monarchist,  has  no  con- 
ception of  what  a  disservice  he  is  thus  rendering  to  kings,  for 
if  war  really  does  amount  to  "  the  last  argument  of  kings," 
then  there  would  be  all  the  more  justification  for  the  republi- 
cans making  a  fittting  rejoinder.  There  is,  however,  a  grain 
of  truth  in  these  words,  and  hence  Kant  insists  on  the  neces- 
sity for  a  federation  of  "free  republican  states"  if  perpetual 
peace  is  to  be  maintained. 

AVe  hear  it  repeated  over  and  over  again  that  we  are  bound 
in  honor  to  go  to  war,  and  that  "it  is  a  worthless  nation  which 
will  not  joyfully  sacrifice  everything  for  honor's  sake."  Xo 
doubt ;  but  the  only  question  is  whether  honor  can  be  retrieved 
by  force  of  arms.  A  nation  which  can  conceive  of  this  being 
possible  has  no  more  genuine  honor  in  it  than  a  good  pistol- 
shot  who  has  made  his  notions  of  honor  fit  in  with  his  sureness 
of  aim. 

Does  any  one  really  believe  that  the  distressingly  deep 
feelings  of  hatred,  fear,  and  contempt  with  which  the  majority 
of  mankind  at  present  regard  Germany  would  not  be  greatly 
increased  if  the  Germans  were  to  succeed  in  imposing  their 
rule  upon  still  more  non-German-speaking  territories?  It  is 
moral  conquests  which  w^e  need  to  make,  and  if  Germany  were 
to  win,  and  nevertheless  to  fulfil  the  elementary  demands  of 
humanity  (which  would,  of  course,  then  be  more  difficult), 
(hen  she  would  have  retrieved  her  honor. 

Docs  any  one  believe  that  at  the  beginning  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  Germany  lost  her  honor  because  she  succumbed 
before  the  Corsican's  superior  military  methods?  Or  that 
Denmark  or  Belgium  have  lost  their  honor  because  of  having 
had  to  yield  to  their  stronger  neighbor?  Again,  was  it  in  any 
sense  an  honor  for  Napoleon  or  William  I  to  have  conquered 

,    1  Friedrich  Loofs,  "Internationale  Monatssclirift  fiir  T.  Wissenschaft, 
Kuust,  und  Teelmik,"  1913.     Vol    IX,  No.  1. 


WAR  AND  THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  LIFE  65 

those  weaker  than  themselves?  Let  man  once  ask  himself 
these  questions  impartially;  there  can  be  no  doubt  about  the 
answer.  A  man's  honor  depends  upon  the  good  opinion  of 
his  fellow-men,  a  nation's  honor  upon  the  good  opinion  of 
other  nations ;  and  the  time  is  past  when  this  good  opinion 
can  be  earned  by  the  possession  of  a  stronger  biceps. 

Indispensable  as  war  may  seem  regarded  as  an  inherited 
notion,  as  a  reasonable  act,  or  as  the  duty  of  every  man  of 
honor,  it  cainiot  possibly  be  anything  of  the  sort.  For  man 
indeed  nothing  can  be  allowed  to  be  a  necessity  except  what 
he  himself,  after  free  reflections,  has  recognized  as  a  right. 
This  is  the  meaning  of  the  proud  words  "Thou  slialt,"  which 
he,  unfettered  man,  uses  in  contradistinction  to  fettered  na- 
ture's "Thou  must.'' 

No  honor  and  no  dignity  could  be  defended  by  actions  im- 
posed by  necessity.  Hence  any  one  asserting  the  necessity 
of  war,  in  so  doing  likens  it  to  an  animal  act,  and  Fenelon  ^  was 
right  in  saying  that  it  is  the  disgrace  of  the  human  race  that 
war  sometimes  seems  inevitable. 

1  "C'est  la  lionfp  cln  jrenre  liuinain,  que  la  guerre  soit  inevitable." 
169'.).     T^lemacjuo,  J5ook  XI. 


CHAPTER  III 

Selection  by  2^1eans  of  War 

1. — selection  and  education 
§  29. — Positive  and  Negative  Selection 

War,  says  Professor  K.  von  Stengel/  is  a  touchstone  of 
nations,  for  in  war  everything  rotten  is  destroyed;  and  some 
pastor  or  ecclesiastic  whose  name  I  have  forgotten  even  goes 
the  length  of  asserting  that  war  is  God's  great  winnowing  vane 
with  which  He  separates  the  wheat  from  the  chafip.  In  this 
or  some  similar  fashion  has  the  doctrine  of  selection  being 
effected  by  the  straggle  for  existence  been  thoughtlessly  and 
blindly  transferred  by  many  persons  to  war  between  human 
beings. 

Undoubtedly  war  does  effect  selection,  but  for  that  matter 
nothing  in  the  world  ever  happens  which  does  not  to  some 
extent  do  so.  If  a  new  stock-exchange  law  is  promulgated, 
those  persons  perish,  at  all  events  as  stock  brokers,  who  can- 
not accommodate  themselves  to  the  new  regulations;  and  if 
new  riding  rules  are  issued,  the  first  riding  prize  will  not  be 
won  by  the  same  person  as  would  have  won  it  under  the  old 
rules,  although  this  does  not  mean  that  any  one  will  learn 
to  ride  better  under  the  new  rules.  Similarly  with  regard  to 
war.  It  must  of  course  sift  men,  first  of  all  sorting  them 
into  living  and  dead ;  but  how  do  these  so-called  Darwinians 
know  that  it  is  the  wheat  which  is  left  and  the  chaff  which  is 

1  K.  von  Sten^rel,  "A  World-wide  State  and  the  Problem  of  Peace," 
("W'eltstaat  iind  Friedensproblem") ,  p.  lllf.  [A  highly  combative 
character  sent  by  Germany  as  technical  delegate  to  tiie  first  Hague  Con- 
ference.— Translator] 

66 


SELECTION  BY  MEANS  OF  WAR  67 

removed?  Supposing  it  were  the  other  way  about?  For  in 
the  case  of  all  selective  influences  the  point  is  whether  the 
selection  is  positive  or  negative.  It  may  have  the  effect  of  im- 
proving the  race  or  of  deteriorating  it. 

Supposing  every  gazelle  which  neither  sees  nor  hears  the 
lion  lying  in  wait  for  it,  or,  seeing  him,  is  not  able  to  escape 
quickly  enough,  were  vanquished  and  killed,  then  after  a  time 
the  only  gazelles  left  would  be  those  with  sharp  eyes,  quick 
hearing,  and  agile  limbs.  The}'  alone  would  breed,  and  thus 
the  race  would  become  clearer-sighted,  quicker  of  hearing,  and 
nimbler. 

If,  again,  every  tortoise  with  too  thin  a  shell  is  vanquished 
and  killed,  then  in  time  the  only  tortoises  left  will  be  those 
with  the  thickest  shells.  It  matters  comparatively  little 
whether  they  have  good  eyes  or  ears,  and  as  selection  does 
not  take  effect  here,  their  senses,  supposing  no  other  selective 
influences  to  intervene,  would  eventually  become  dulled;  and 
owing  to  this  negative  selection  we  should  have  a  race  of 
clumsy,  apathetic  creatures,  with  dull  senses.  Both  gazelles 
and  tortoises,  however,  are  admirably  adapted  to  the  peculiar 
circumstances  and  conditions  in  which  their  species  must  live. 

Similarly,  if  war  were  constantly  man's  chief  occupation, 
he  would  assuredly  gradually  become  altogether  adapted  for 
warfare.  Fighting  being  what  it  is,  however,  it  is  not  to  be 
expected  that  a  specially  brave,  vigorous,  or  intelligent  race 
would  arise,  for,  as  we  shall  presently  see,  the  effect  of  war 
is  to  exterminate  all  who  come  within  these  categories ;  but 
owing  to  modern  trench  warfare  it  would  be  a  kind  of  rabbit- 
like race  that  would  come  into  existence.  The  new  human 
being  would  accordingly  have  no  refined  requirements,  since 
in  holes  in  the  earth  it  would  be  impossible  to  satisfy  these; 
he  would  have  a  defective  sense  of  smell,  if  only  in  order  to 
enable  him  to  endure  the  stench  of  decomposing  corpses :  but 
he  would  be  agile  and  nimble,  and  have  good  ears  and  eyes, 
so  as  to  be  able  to  run  fast  in  and  out  of  holes  at  the  right  mo- 
ment.    He  would  also  need  his  good  ca'cs  for  taking  aim,  al- 


68  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

though,  as  experience  teaches,  in  perpetual  fighting  the  lust 
of  slaughter  decreases,  and  fondness  for  taking  cover  increases, 
owing  to  the  simplicity  and  primitive  nature  of  his  occupa- 
tion he  would  have  but  slender  intelligence;  he  would  despise 
peaceful  employments,  because  man  is  naturally  inclined  to 
think  highly  of  his  own  occupation ;  he  would  care  little  for 
comfort,  his  chief  ideas  about  which  would  be  connected  with 
eating  and  drinking ;  and  finally  he  would  have  a  certain  esprit 
de  corps  toward  his  comrades,  but  above  all  he  would  hate 
and  fear  his  enemies.  Such  is  the  half  idiotic  troglodyte  race 
which  would  result  from  permanent  trench  warfare.  An  ap- 
proximate analogy  is  afforded  by  the  medieval  mercenary, 
whose  modern  counterpart,  however,  would  be  only  a  very 
much  reduced  copy,  owing  to  war  having  now  become  far 
more  stupefying. 

§  30.— The  Trend  of  Selection 

No  one  either  will  or  can  deny  what  has  just  been  said. 
But  what  might  be  urged  is  that  all  men  of  this  martial 
rabbit-like  type,  such  as  is  produced  by  w^ar,  would  be  healthy. 
Such  a  statement  is  very  difficult  to  contradict,  because  it 
always  is  difficult  to  disprove  such  assertion  as  that  the  ex- 
ception does  not  prove  the  rule  and  that  a  little  never  does 
any  harm.  Telling  a  few  lies  (necessary  lies),  committing 
a  little  murder,  a  little  conjugal  infidelity,^  and  an  occasional 
failure  to  honor  thy  father  and  thy  mother,- — all  this  may  be 
defended. 

Now,  if  any  one  has  any  belief  at  all  in  its  being  possible 
by  our  own  free  will  to  influence  human  evolution,  then  any 
such  inclination  to  experiment  is  reprehensible ;  for  our  de- 
sires, our  endeavors,  and  our  tendencies  will  one  day  be  ac- 
complished facts  for  future  generations.  "What  to-day  is 
merely  hinted  at  will  be  an  actual  fact  to-morrow.  It  is  not 
so  much  what  we  are  which  really  signifies  as  the  direction 

1  Cf.  Luther. 

2  Cf .  The  famous  order  to  shoot. 


SELECTION  BY  MEANS  OF  WAR  69 

in  which  -we  are  tending ;  and  this  is  why  we  must  think  out 
our  thoughts  clearly  to  the  end.  What  we  must  ask  our- 
selves, therefore,  is  this.  Do  we  mean  through  our  institu- 
tions to  try  to  cause  the  vital  struggle  for  existence  to  tend 
to  make  man  better  or  worse  fitted  for  the  complex  conditions 
of  war? 

Before  answering  this  question  we  must  clearly  realize  that 
every  war  which  a  nation  wages  not  merely  makes  it  tempo- 
rarily *'a  trifle"  more  warlike,  but  irrevocably  gives  it  a  for- 
ward push  in  the  direction  of  what  is  warlike  in  general. 
Thus  whoever  inflames  or  even  approves  the  warlike  sense  of 
his  own  people  must  be  prepared  for  that  last  state  that  all 
warlike  peoples  have  lived  to  see  and  will  live  to  see.  Con- 
versely, every  time  war  is  averted,  humanity  tends  to  become 
more  inclined  toward  peace;  and  whoever  endeavors  to  avert 
a  war  is  likewise  bound  to  take  into  consideration  a  last 
state  which  would  probably  be  a  state  in  which  men  would  be 
unfitted  for  Avar, 

Any  one  attempting  to  reason  this  out  logically  and  ration- 
ally must  make  up  his  mind  whether  his  aim  is  to  train  men 
more  and  more  to  be  soldiers  or  to  be  peaceful  citizens,  and 
whether  he  hopes  in  the  future,  perhaps  a  still  distant  future, 
that  there  will  be  peace  or  war.  By  our  present  actions  our 
race  is  being  prepared  for  its  future  state,  and  I  believe  that, 
had  we  always  been  aware  of  the  effects  of  our  resolves,  we 
might  have  realized  far  more  clearly  whither  our  pacilic  and 
our  national  aspirations  were  leading  us.  The  belief  pre- 
vailed, hov.'cver,  tliat  it  was  possible  to  take  side  leaps.  Just 
as  a  man  could  occasionally  get  drunk  without  being  afraid  of 
becoming  a  drunkard,  so  it  was  believed  that  men  in  gen- 
eral could  occasionally  wage  war  without  becoming  warriors: 
and  some  people  even  went  the  length  of  saying  that  there 
must  be  something  wrong  with  a  man  who  had  never  got  drunk 
or  been  to  war.  Those  wlio  argue  thus  forget  that,  although 
a  person  certainly  can  take  side  leaps  without  serious  conse- 
quences resulting,  this  is  impossible  for  a  race,  unless  what 


70  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

is  called  negative  selection  is  to  set  in,  which  of  course  for  the 
person  does  not  signify. 

This  can  easily  be  proved.  It  is  an  ordinary  commonplace 
that  man  owes  his  position  in  the  world  to-day  solely  to  the 
evolution  of  his  brain.  I  need  do  no  more  than  recall  what 
has  already  been  explained  in  Chapter  II  (Part  4)  dealing 
with  freedom  and  natural  selection ;  namely,  that  this  condi- 
tion of  evolution  already  prevailed  w^hen  the  forest-dwelling 
savage  made  himself  his  first  tool,  and  thus  paved  the  way  for 
the  development  of  his  brain.  Since  then  mankind  has  con- 
tinued along  the  broad  wa}^  leading  to  ever-increasing  libera- 
tion of  the  brain ;  and  in  my  view  with  this  path  of  progress 
we  may  rest  content.  Discontent,  moreover,  would  be  useless, 
for  we  must  continue  in  it.  That  is  the  terrible  greatness  of 
nature,  that  she  knows  no  turning  back.  Implacable  neces- 
sity will  have  it  that  what  has  once  been  begun  must  be  gone 
on  with  to  the  end.  As  in  the  legend  of  Orpheus,  a  legend 
which  in  some  form  or  other  is  common  to  almost  all  nations, 
it  would  be  death  to  look  back.  However  much  the  savage 
greatness  of  the  Renaissance  may  attract  us,  however  grand 
the  heroic  combats  before  Troy  may  seem,  however  keen  may 
be  the  longing  for  our  primeval  home  aroused  in  us  by  delight 
in  the  innocent  enjoyments  of  the  savage  or  even  of  the  animal, 
all  these  delights  are  irrecoverably  lost  to  us.  We  must  learn 
to  take  pleasure  in  a  new  kind  of  beauty,  for  in  nature  there  is 
no  going  back,  but  only  going  forward. 

Now,  nature,  when  she  advances  thus  in  one  direction  only, 
owing  to  the  influence  of  selection,  is  absolutely  prevented 
from  ever  making  any  experiments.  This  at  first  sight  seems 
strange,  for  has  not  nature  alwa^^s  been  experimenting?  Did 
she  not  at  first  produce  many  round  and  many-cornered  ani- 
mals, until  it  became  evident  that  the  bilateral,  symmetrical 
formation  was  the  best  ?  Did  she  not  make  experiments  with 
aquatic,  aerial,  and  terrestrial  animals,  until  the  terrestrial 
creatures  gained  the  upper  hand?  Did  she  not  produce  six- 
footed    insects,    eight-footed   spiders,    ten-footed   crabs,    and 


SELECTION  BY  MEANS  OF  WAR  71 

many-footed  millipeds  before  she  arrived  at  the  practical 
quadruped?  All  these  and  many  more  instances  may  cer- 
tainly be  justly  cited,  but  on  closer  inspection  we  see  that 
nature's  way  was  not  our  way. 

For  example,  if  we  wish  to  learn  to  fly,  we  get  wings,  as  was 
always  done  throughout  the  Middle  Ages ;  and  if  this  does  not 
answer,  then  they  are  laid  aside,  and  a  balloon  is  procured, 
as  was  done  by  Montgolfier  in  1783.  After  man  had  tor- 
mented himself  therewith  for  a  while,  and  realized  that  it  is 
possible  to  steer  such  a  construction  only  to  a  limited  extent, 
as  Krebs  and  Renard  discovered  in  1884,  the  balloon  is  also 
put  away  in  its  shed,  and  the  almost  forgotten  wings  are 
brought  out  again.  This  time,  however,  they  are  put  to  quite 
another  purpose ;  that  is,  they  are  spread  out  as  slides,  as  was 
done  by  Le  Briez,  and  more  particularly  by  Otto  Lilienthal 
in  1890.  And  so  matters  go  on,  some  trying  to  derive  the 
necessary  force  from  steam-engines,  as,  for  instance.  Sir  Hiram 
Maxim  did  in  1893,  or  from  accumulators,  as  did  Krebs  and 
Renard  in  1884,  only  to  find  that  they  did  not  answer :  while 
others  tried  the  benzoin  motor,  as  did  the  brothers  Wright 
in  1903,  finding  this  answer.  And  ultimately,  after  many 
experiments,  we  shall  have  a  serviceable  flying-machine. 

It  is  easy  to  see  that  the  possibility  of  experimenting  in  the 
human  sense  of  the  word  depends  upon  the  possession  of 
detachable  organs.  Nature,  however,  has  no  detachable  or- 
gans, and  is  therefore  compelled  to  experiment  in  some  other 
way.  When  the  animal  world  made  a  conquest  of  the  air, 
various  kinds  of  preliminary  attempts  were  made.  Some  crea- 
tures, such  as  s<|uirrels,  grew  bushy  tails,  thickly  covered  with 
hair,  so  that  they  might  fall  more  slowly  and  be  able  to  take 
longer  jumps:  in  the  case  of  others  the  skin  between  leg  and 
arm  became  extended  out  so  as  to  form  a  fulcrum,  as  in  the 
case  of  the  Sciuroptent;  in  a  third  case — that  of  bats — a  skin 
grew  and  became  stretched  between  the  fingers,  which  had  be- 
come very  long;  and  finally  in  a  fourth  case — that  of  birds — 
feathers  grew. 


72  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

Although  of  these  four  methods  only  the  last,  feathers,  has 
proved  satisfactory,  yet  the  other  creatures  cannot  now  ex- 
change their  imperfect  equipment  for  feathers.  They  must 
proceed  along  the  way  on  which  they  once  set  out,  Avhether  it 
lead  backward  or  forward.  There  is  no  turning  back  for 
them ;  and  so  it  is  with  ever^'thing.  Should  an  animal  be  spe- 
cially well  adapted  to  night  life,  to  tropics,  or  to  mountains, 
then  from  henceforth  it  must  permanently  live  in  the  night, 
in  the  tropics,  or  in  the  mountains,  and  the  only  way  in  which 
it  can  possibly  attain  greater  perfection  is  to  become  al- 
together exceptionally  well  suited  to  its  special  surroundings. 

Thus  is  the  evolution  of  organisms  restricted,  and  the  evo- 
lution of  man  would  be  restricted  in  just  the  same  way  were 
not  his  brain  free,  so  that  he  can  change  his  organs  at  will. 

§  31. — Wise  and  Foolish 

It  may  therefore  be  considered  an  established  fact  that  hu- 
man evolution  proper  depends  upon  the  evolution  of  our 
brain,^  indeed  amounts  to  the  same  thing.  For  man,  conse- 
quently, many  limitations  imposed  on  animals  do  not  exist. 
Man  can  develop  freely  in  every  respect,  but — and  this  is  the 
one  limitation — //  mankind  is  to  progress,  the  development  of 
the  hrain  must  he  promoted.  Or,  in  other  words,  every  vic- 
tory of  the  wise  over  the  foolish  means  a  step  forward,  and 
is  a  sign  of  positive  selection;  every  victory  of  the  foolish 
over  the  wise  is  a  step  backward,  a  sign  of  negative  selection. 

Now,  it  is  a  universal  fact  that  wherever  force  decides, 

1  It  is,  of  course,  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  our  brain  cannot  be 
thus  developed  unless  the  body  be  likewise  developed  at  tlie  same  time. 
Of  the  important  facts  connected  with  this,  tlie  most  essential  have 
been  cited  in  wliat  has  been  said  concerning  freedom  and  natural  com- 
pulsion. Suffice  it  here  to  remark  that  the  brain  owes  much  to  the 
hand,  and  due  note  should  be  taken  of  the  fact  that  everything  which 
refines  the  hand  is  promoting  human  evolution,  whereas  everything 
wliich  coarsens  it  has,  to  say  the  least,  nothing  to  do  with  evolution. 
Any  one  who  has  really  understood  these  condensed  reflections  will  per- 
ceive no  inconsistency  in  tlie  fact  that  the  laborer's  callous  fist  is  often 
superior  to  tlie  manicured  hand  of  a  dandy. 


SELECTION  BY  MEANS  OF  WAR  73 

whether  it  be  the  brute  force  of  cannon  or  the  no  less  great 
force  of  intolerance,  it  is  a  hindrance  to  wisdom;  in  other 
words,  to  positive  selection  based  on  intellectual  superiority. 
Every  decision  by  means  of  force  is  therefore  to  be  rejected. 

Du  bist  im  rubmgekronten  Morden 
Das  erste  Land  der  "Welt  geworden !  ^ 

This  is  the  one  assertion  which  can  be  made  with  some  show 
of  justification  after  a  victorious  war.  No  further  inference 
must  be  drawn,  liowever.  There  is  certainly  nothing  impos- 
sible in  those  who  are  foremost  in  the  art  of  killing  likewise 
attaining  distinction  in  the  arts  of  civilization:  such  a  com- 
bination of  qualities  is  not  unthinkable,  albeit  highly  improb- 
able. Probably  no  one  has  expounded  this  with  so  much 
detail  and  logic  as  Steinmetz.-  According  to  him,  victory 
is  attained  not  by  one  virtue  alone,  but  bj'  a  number  of  virtues 
together.  As  such  he  instances  fidelity,  sense  of  solidarity,  en- 
durance, conscientiousness,  education,  inventiveness,  thrift, 
wealth,  and  physical  health  and  strength,^ 

Now,  this  motley  collection  of  the  most  heterogeneous  con- 
ceptions is  almost  a  classical  instance  of — pardon  the  word, 
but  it  is  not  too  strong — the  absurdity  of  the  argument  of 
these  victory  enthusiasts,  who  never  inquire  whether  victory 
promotes  virtue,  but  simply  call  everything  a  virtue  which 
conduces  to  victory.  In  reality  all  the  qualities  just  enumer- 
ated are  by  no  means  virtues  in  themselves,  but  may  be  either 
virtues  or  vices  according  to  their  motive.  It  is  possible  to  be 
faithful  to  something  good  or  to  something  bad,  just  as  we  may 
have  a  fellow  feeling  for  what  is  good  or  for  what  is  bad,  and 
so  on.     Thus  all  these  virtues  of  Steinmetz 's  are  virtues  only 

iGeornf  Herwerrh,  "Germania,"  1871.  [The  first  country  in  the  world 
hast  tliou  risen  to  be,  but  wearing  blood-stained  laurels.] 

2  Dr.  S.  R.  Steinmetz,  "Philosophic  des  Krieges"  (The  Philosophy  of 
War).     1907:   Bath,  Leipsic. 

3  In  the  ensuing  pages  I  shall  refer  several  times  more  in  detail  to 
the  question  of  whether  there  is  any  sueli  connection  between  the  virtues 
of  peace  and  those  of  war. 


74  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

so  long  as  we  consider  war  and  its  effects  good.  If  we  cease 
so  to  consider  them,  then  they  become  vices;  for,  as  already 
said,  the  conservative  fidelity  wherewith  mankind  clings  to 
its  ancient  instinct  for  war  has  now  ceased  to  be  a  good  thing, 
and  the  way  small  groups  of  persons  hold  together,  thereby  im- 
peding the  solidarity  of  mankind,  ought  to  be  blamed,  not 
praised.  It  is  worthy  of  note  that  no  mention  should  be  made 
of  virtues  such  as  love  and  truthfulness. 

Each  one  of  these  "virtues"  will  be  estimated  quite  dif- 
ferently by  every  person,  according  to  his  party.  That  a 
victory  is  due  to  fidelity  or  conscientiousness  will  never  be 
admitted  by  the  vanquished.  Wh}'-  even  now,  whenever  the 
German  war  reports  are  forced  to  admit  some  success  of  the 
enemy,  they  attribute  it  to  asphyxiating  bombs  or  some  other 
act  of  treachery  and  unscrupulousness. 

That  thrift  should  promote  victory  might  also  seem  surpris- 
ing; at  this  time  victory  is  supposed  mainly  to  depend  upon 
who  can  squander  most  money  in  shells.  Steinmetz,  however, 
is  not  referring  at  all  to  thrift  in  war-time,  but  to  thrift  in 
peace-time,  and  herein  most  people  will  readily  agree  with  him. 
It  is  hard  to  see,  however,  why  it  should  be  a  virtue  to  spend 
little  on  education,  this  being  the  only  respect  in  which  a 
martial  state  can  economize.  This  particular  philosopher, 
moreover,  also  differs  from  his  fellows  in  considering  wealth 
also  as  a  virtue !  War  and  capitalism  the  modern  virtues ! 
Herr  Steinmetz  is,  at  any  rate,  logical.^ 

Strangely  enough,  Herr  Steinmetz  makes  no  mention  of 
courage,  which,  in  fact,  is  now  no  longer  a  warlike  virtue. 
The  courageous,  energetic  lieutenants  did  harm  rather  than 
good  in  the  early  days  of  the  war,  and  matters  did  not  mend 

1  Coneerniug  education  and  inventiveness,  health  and  strength,  and 
also  the  feeling  of  solidarity  I  shall  liave  more  to  say  hereafter.  As  re- 
gards education  Cf.  §108-111  on  patriotism  and  civilization:  §  119-122 
on  the  contrast  between  civilization  and  jingoism;  and  §  134-138  on 
(ierman  humanity  and  German  militarism.  Concerning  inventiveness 
Cf.  68-70  about  the  tendency  of  war  always  to  be  behind  the  times. 
Concerning  liealth  cf.  §  3.5-39,  "On  the  Alleged  Tonic  Efifects  of  War." 


SELECTION  BY  MEANS  OF  WAR  75 

until  the  reserve  lieutenant  gained  control.  An  indirect  con- 
firmation of  the  worthlessness  of  courage  is  afforded  also  by 
those  who,  in  the  excess  of  their  enthusiasm,  say  that  nowa- 
days there  are  no  longer  any  privileged  heroes,  but  that  every 
one  is  a  hero.  Any  one  acquainted  with  human  nature  and 
knowing  how  rare  is  real  bravery  will  also  know  what  this 
means.  Just  as  the  individual  leader  is  swallowed  up  in 
the  general  staff  organization,  so  the  individual  hero  is  swal- 
lowed up  in  the  trenches.  There  was  a  time  when  courage  was 
a  warlike  virtue. 

If  there  is  still  a  martial  virtue,  then  it  is  a  gift  for 
organization.  Railways  must  work  and  movements  of  troops 
proceed  without  a  hitch;  shells  must  be  provided,  and  like- 
w'ise  food  for  hundreds  and  thousands  of  men.  No  one  is  read- 
ier than  I  am  to  admit  how  well  all  this  mechanism  works, 
especially  in  Germany,  and  to  marvel  thereat.  In  the  capac- 
ity to  prepare  for  and  carry  out  any  action  with  this  perfection 
there  is  something  which  fills  us  with  the  most  joyful  confi- 
dence. AVe  have  already  reached  the  stage  of  being  able  to 
organize  men  by  the  millions.  But  here  again  a  gift  of 
organization  in  itself  is  not  a  virtue,  but  merely  appears  to  be 
one,  and  becomes  one  only  because  of  the  motives  for  which  a 
man  organizes. 

This  Avar  lias  shown  that  we  can  organize.  We  organized 
for  war  and  for  the  destruction  of  others.  This  may  please 
those  who  consider  there  is  virtue  in  destruction,  but  those 
who  see  virtue  in  coustruction  will  insist  on  this  proved  gift 
for  organization  being  used  for  constructive  purposes.  Should 
the  war  ultimately  succeed  in  bringing  this  about,  as  I  be- 
lieve it  will,  and  as  I  would  do  everything  in  my  power  to 
insure  its  doing,  then  and  only  then  would  this  last  European 
War  mean  the  painful  winding  up  of  a  bygone  period  and 
the  promise-laden  beginning  of  a  new  future. 

We  always  come  back  to  the  same  point.  Those  v.-ho  begin 
by  assuming  that  war  and  warlike  qualities  are  good  v.ill  think 
that  war  breeds  (pialities  which  are  warlike  and  therefore,  in 


76  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

their  opinion,  good;  but  those  who  dispassionately  inquire 
what  are  virtue  and  happiness  and  what  is  man's  purpose 
here  below,  and  then,  having  once  answered  these  questions, 
proceed  to  ask  w^hether  one  of  them  is  promoted  by  war,  must 
unhesitatingly  admit  that  war,  particularly  war  under  mod- 
ern conditions,  no  longer  promotes  any  positive  virtue  which 
has  anything  whatever  to  do  with  civilization. 

I  might  still  be  able  to  imagine  a  civilized  fighting  man 
of  Frederick  the  Great's  or  Napoleon's  time,  even  so  late  as 
1870,  but  not  now,  for  the  extreme  subdivision  of  labor  in  all 
departments  of  human  activity  has  gradually  caused  civiliza- 
tion and  the  art  of  war  to  adopt  such  absolutely  dissimilar 
foinns  that  any  connection  between  the  two  seems  no  longer 
possible. 

But  what  is  both  singular  and  disgraceful  is  that  formerly, 
when  this  might  perhaps  still  have  been  admissible,  no  civilized 
human  being  even  thought  of  going  to  fight,  and  that  only 
now,  when  the  gulf  between  war  and  civilization  has  widened 
to  the  uttermost,  has  universal  service  been  introduced,  which 
needlessly  exposes  the  most  highly  differentiated  human  beings 
to  the  same  risks  as  mercenaries  naturally  predestined  for 
wear's  handiwork.  This  is  like  attempting  to  construct,  a  hu- 
man skeleton  out  of  brain-cells.  There  could  be  only  one  re- 
sult :  the  brain-cells  would  be  completely  crushed,  and  the 
bone-cells  would  alone  remain.  Such  is  the  kind  of  choice 
which  will  be  made  by  modern  warfare.  Men  of  brain  perish, 
men  of  bone  remain,  which  is  also  a  form  of  selection,  but 
not  one  tending  toward  that  kind  of  evolution  which  pro- 
motes the  development  of  the  brain,  quite  apart  from  any 
personal  predilection,  but  from  general  consideration  of  hu- 
manity. 

In  principle,  therefore,  it  may  be  said  that  wherever  force 
and  intolerance  decide,  there  is  no  positive  selection  tending 
to  promote  human  evolution,  for  here  not  the  wise  man,  but 
the  strong  man,  has  the  upper  hand.  But  where  justice  pre- 
vails, there  the  wise  man,  not  the  strong  man,  rules,  talent, 


SELECTION  BY  MEANS  OF  WAR  77 

and  not  brute  force ;  and  consequently  positive  selection  takes 
place,  tending  toward  human  evolution. 

Now  we  understand  what  every  human  means  more  or  less 
clearly  by  an  "inborn  natural  human  right."  Even  an 
action  which  runs  counter  to  the  letter  of  the  law  seems  to  us, 
nevertheless,  justified  "if  it  forwards  the  general  deed  of 
man, ' '  ^  for  right  is  right  only  if  it  exercises  positive  select* 
assists  talent,  and  furthers  civilization. 

§  ;J2. — The  Effect  of  Viar  on  the  Development  of  Intelligence 

Now,  it  is  true  that  in  general  beasts  of  prey  are  considered 
more  intelligent  than  beasts  prcjxd  upon.  Even  the  people 
have  got  into  the  wny  of  thinking  it  a  greater  compliment  to 
any  one's  intelligence  to  call  him  a  dog  or  a  cat  than  a  sheep 
or  an  ox.  This  also  explains  why  lions,  leopards,  eagles, 
griffins,  and  other  creatures  able  to  put  up  a  fight  ranked  above 
the  rest  and  were  chosen  for  coats  of  arms.-  The  elepliant  of 
Siam,  the  llama  of  Peru,  and  the  peacock  of  Burma  are  foreign 
exceptions.  In  general,  however,  this  popular  belief  that 
predatory  creatures  are  more  intelligent  is  correct.  The  ex- 
planation is  that  prowling  after  pre}'  requires  more  intelli- 
gence than  running  away.     Now,  although  predatory  habits 

1  Robert  Browning,  "By  the  Fireside."  (This  the  author  translates 
by  ''wenn  sie  die  aUyemtine  Idee  der  ilenschhcit  fordert,"  doubtless  cor- 
rectly.— Translator. ) 

-  An  examination  of  European  coats  of  arms,  national  and  provincial, 
gives  the  following  appro.viuiate  result:  eagles  occur  thirty  times; 
bulls  five;  leopards,  grilluis,  and  horses  each  three  times.  Thus  ani- 
mals have  been  selected  about  seventy  times  obviously  on  account  of 
their  nature  appearing  to  be  martial  or  iitlcd  for  war.  True,  the  mar- 
ten of  .Slavonia,  the  sable  of  Siberia,  and  the  raven  of  Galicia  are  also 
predatory  creatures,  but  were  evidently  chosen  for  other  and  purely 
local  reasons.  Similarly,  the  Icelandic  stockfish,  the  he  goat  of  the 
Faroe  Islands,  the  Istrian  goat,  and  the  Schall'liausen  ram  must  not 
lead  us  to  make  any  inferences  as  to  peaceful  tendencies,  for  here  again 
local  causes  determined  their  clioice.  Tliese  heraldic  creatures  must  be 
the  only  instances  of  '"peaceful  coats  of  arms"  that  Europe  can  show  eo 
far  as  animals  are  concerned.  On  tlie  other  hand,  in  America  and  Asia 
peaceful  animals  occur  fairly  frequently,  a'thonpli,  it  is  true,  generally 
because  of  their  representing  some  product  of  the  country  concerned. 


78  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

are  sometimes  essentially  different  from  man's  martial  ways, 
yet  it  might  be  thought  that  outwardly  similar  habits  of 
life  might  produce  similar  effects. 

This,  however,  is  not  the  case,  for  we  find  exceptions  even 
among  animals.  The  very  cleverest  animals,  monkeys  and 
elephants,  are  not  predatory.  How  is  this?  So  long  «s  the 
procuring  of  food  is  a  creature's  sole  occupation,  a  beast  of 
prey  must  of  course  be  more  intelligent,  it  being  more  difficult 
and  requiring  more  attention  and  dexterity  to  track  down  a 
mobile  animal  than  to  eat  a  motionless  plant,  which  in  turn 
demands  more  intelligence  than  the  plant  needs,  since  it  finds 
its  means  of  sustenance  in  earth,  air,  and  water,  and  every- 
where, without  ever  needing  to  look  for  it. 

Thus  we  note  here  three  stages.  First,  the  plant,  which 
requires  and  has  so  little  intelligence  that  this  is  not  even 
perceptible;  secondly,  the  vegetable-feeder;  and,  thirdly,  the 
beast  of  prey.  This  scale,  however,  applies  only  so  long  as  the 
sole  concern  of  an  organism  is  eating ;  in  other  words,  its  own 
self.  But  directly  it  acquires  interests  in  other  things  and 
particularly  in  other  creatures,  it  can  educate  itself  by  means 
of  its  new  interests,  and  a  predatory  creature  ceases  to  be  nec- 
essarily any  more  intelligent  than  its  prey. 

These  new  and  no  longer  purely  selfish  interests  make  even 
higher  demands  on  a  creature's  intelligence  than  the  old 
predatory  instincts.  For  instance,  when  the  cock  himself 
no  longer  eats  up  even-thing  he  finds,  but  also  sees  that  the 
hens  get  enough,  since  they  have  more  need  of  food  than  he 
as  they  have  to  produce  the  eggs,  this  is  a  social  instinct.  The 
bird  or  animal  itself  need  not  be  aware  of  the  possession  of 
such  an  instinct,  but  in  order  to  transmute  it  into  action,  it 
must  possess  certain  higher  intellectual  qualities.  Above  all. 
the  individual  creature  must  be  able  to  express  what  he  wants. 
That  is,  he  must  have  some  sort  of  means  of  communication 
(speech),  and  he  must  respect  the  wishes  of  others,  and  there- 
fore he  must  know  in  Avhat  they  consist.  SppecJi,  yrxifrsfnnd 
ing,  and  capacity  for  learning  are  now  the  factors  which  are 


SELECTION  BY  MEANS  OF  WAR  79 

gradually  being  more  and  more  developed.  They  it  is  which 
form  the  intellect,  and  in  comparison  with  them  the  distinction 
between  predatory  and  preyed  upon  sinks  into  insignificance. 
Hence  it  is  that  after  a  certain  period  the  social  animals,  such 
as  monkeys,  beavers,  elephants,  wolves,  etc.,  no  matter  whether 
they  hunt  or  are  hunted,  attain  a  higher  degree  of  intelli- 
gence than  predatory  animals  did  formerly ;  and  the  degree  of 
this  intelligence  is  in  the  main  in  proportion  to  the  extent  to 
which  they  are  associated  together.^ 

Monkeys,  in  particular,  have  an  extraordinary  faculty  for 
learning  and  imitation;  they  understand  language  well,  and 
have  even  an  obviously  not  fully  developed  language  of  their 
own,  to  investigate  which  attempts,  not  wholly  successful,  have 
been  made  of  recent  j^ears. 

Whether  social  animals  are  predatory  or  preyed  upon  has 
nothing  whatever  to  do  with  their  intelligence.  On  the  con- 
trary, the  iiifluence  of  predatory  instincts  tends  rather  to 
retard  the  development  of  social  instincts,  and  consequently 
of  the  intelligence.  Predatoiy  instincts,  therefore,  after  a 
certain  stage,  must  have  injurious  effects,  because  the  slight 
increase  in  intelligence  due  to  them  can  no  longer  compensate 
for  the  inevitable  disadvantages  resulting  from  any  obstruc- 
tion of  social  progress. 

As  regards  mankind,  all  this  is  beyond  possibility  of  doubt. 
Observations  made  upon  Malays  and  Indians  have  proved 
that  predatory  and  hunting  tribes  have  not  even  keener  senses 
(better  eyes,  ears,  and  noses,  etc)  as  was  long  believed;  while 
they  are  assuredly  not  more  intelligent.  In  fact,  civilization 
has  always  been  diffused  by  the  settled,  non-warlike  peoples. 

Of  all  the  nations  known  to  us  the  Greeks  were  the  civilized 
nation  par  excellence;  and  although,  when  necessity  arose — 
that  is,  when  their  civilization  was  menaced — they  fought 
most  valiantly,  nevertheless  they  were  not  at  all  warlike,  at 
any  rate  much  less  so  than  the  nations  with  whom  tliey  fought 

1  Comerning  the  apparent  exception  in  the  case  of  the  higher  monkeya 
cf.  5  11. 


80  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

and  whom  they  also  conquered,  an  important  point.  For  that 
matter,  peaceful  nations,  being  more  intelligent,  frequently 
have  overcome  warlike  nations. 

Of  the  Greeks  themselves  the  Spartans  and,  later  on,  the 
Macedonians  were  the  most  warlike,  but  at  the  same  time  the 
least  highly  civilized.  Conversely,  the  Romans  were  a  nation 
of  warriors,  but  they  did  little  for  civilization.  AVe  can  ob- 
serve a  similar  state  of  things  everywhere,  and  there  is  prob- 
ably hardly  a  better  instance  of  it  than  the  German  nation. 
In  Tacitus 's  time  it  was  warlike  and  barbaric,  but  gradually, 
alarmed  by  too  many  wars,  it  became  peaceful,  and  at  the 
same  time  its  civilization  began  to  arouse  the  admiration  of 
the  world.  But  again  a  reaction  set  in,  and  not  content  with 
the  blessings  of  peace,  we  lusted  after  war  and  national  great- 
ness. Simultaneously,  the  finest  flower  of  our  national  civiliza- 
tion began  to  droop.  After  all,  however  much  ]\Ioltke  and 
Bernhardi,  Rontgen  and  Emil  Fischer,  Gerardt  Hauptmann 
and  Aveuarius,  may  be  worth,  Ilardenberg  and  Stein,  Helm- 
holtz  and  Liebig,  Goethe  and  Kant,  were  worth  more,  or  at  all 
events  they  were  different — in  order  to  avoid  any  disparaging 
opinions,  which  may  be  merely  personal.^ 

These  men  had  a  freedom  and  delicacy  of  thought  all  their 
own.  Their  ideas  were  the  ideas  of  genius,  and  they  left  their 
imprint  on  the  whole  world.     All  our  industrious  workers— 

1  This  contrast,  however,  is  not  in  any  way  intended  to  be  disparag- 
ing. I  have  said  elsevvliere  Iiow  high  an  opinion  I  liave,  for  instance, 
of  Emil  Fischer.  Bismarck  is  intentionally  omitted,  but  the  very  fact 
of  many  persons  considering  this  great  material  politician  as  abso- 
lutely the  modern  German  ideal  of  a  man  is  perhaps  the  strongest  con- 
lirmation  of  the  truth  of  what  1  have  said.  [Dr.  Nicolai  do\ibtless 
here  means  the  German  philosopher  Avenarius,  who  died  in  1896,  and 
not  the  contemporary  poet  and  writer  on  art  Hardenberg  is  of  course 
Karl  August  Fiirst  von  Hardenberg  (1750-1822),  the  Prussian  states- 
man, who  succeeded  Stein  as  chancellor  of  state,  continuing  his  policy 
of  internal  reforms.  He  did  a  great  deal  for  Prussia  by  abolishing 
trade  privileges,  sweeping  away  serfdom,  and  in  developing  education. 
Heinrich  Friedrich  Karl,  Baron  vom  Stein,  1757-1831,  was  also  a 
strongly  liberalizing  Prussian  statesman. — Translator] 


SELECTION  BY  MEANS  OF  WAR  81 

they  might  almost  be  called  technicians — of  to-day  cannot  at- 
tain thereto, 

§  33.— T/te  Futility  of  Wars  to-dmj 

In  olden  times  there  may  have  been  some  truth  in  the  say- 
ing that  war  meant  the  survival  of  the  fittest.  First,  from 
natural  causes  the  individual  tribes,  cities,  or  states  were  very 
much  the  same  size,  for  a  country's  sovereign  rights  extended 
as  the  means  of  communication  developed,  and  these  were 
probably  everywhere  much  about  the  same.  If  two  of  these 
tribes,  cities,  or  states  had  a  warlike  encounter,  the  probabilit}' 
therefore  from  the  outset  was  that  quality,  not  quantity  or 
numbers,  would  decide  matters;  that  is,  that  the  fitter  of  the 
two  would  win.  Now,  the  conqueror  would  kill  out  all  the  kins- 
men of  the  conquered, — that  is,  be  it  noted,  not  merely  the 
select  few  sent  to  fight,  but  also  the  rest  who  had  stayed  at 
home, — kill  them  out  to  the  last  man  or  else  lead  them  away 
into  captivity.  As  for  the  enemies'  women,  they  were  either 
killed  or  violated,  and  thus  a  "breed  of  conquerors"  arose. 
This  particular  kind  of  fight  caused  by  or,  at  any  rate,  ending 
in,  a  rape  of  women,  was  even  to  some  extent  a  biological  ne- 
cessity, in  order  to  avoid  the  mischievous  consequences  of  in- 
breeding, to  which  human  beings  dwelling  in  small  tribes  must 
otherwise  have  been  exposed. 

In  point  of  fact  the  result  of  these  barbarous,  but  thoroughly 
appropriate,  methods  of  warfare  was  to  rule  the  physically  in- 
ferior out  of  count ;  and  even  if  it  might  be  questioned  whether 
this  form  of  selection  answered  w'ell  or  not,  and  whether  other 
methods  would  not  have  w^orked  better,  at  all  events,  war  did 
not  then  mean  negative  selection.  Now,  however,  the  selec- 
tion has  become  negative,  and  modern  laws  of  war  most  clev- 
erly prevent  war  from  being  of  any  biological  value  what- 
ever. The  effect  of  universal  service  in  particular  is  to  injure 
just  the  very  fittest. 

In  Germany  there  live  some  thirtj'-three  million  men,  half  of 


82  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

whom  are  too  young  or  too  old  to  take  the  field.  Of  the  other 
sixteen  million  half  again  are  rejected  because  of  some  physical 
or  mental  inferiority.  There  remain,  therefore,  about  eight 
million  who  are  vigorous,  healthy,  and  intelligent  enough  to 
be  allowed  to  take  the  field.  Children  and  old  men  are  pro- 
tected by  government ;  but  besides  them  the  blind,  deaf,  and 
dumb,  idiots,  hunchbacks,  scrofulous  and  impotent  persons, 
imbeciles,  paralytics,  epileptics,  dwarfs,  and  abortions — all 
this  human  riffraff  and  dross,  need  have  no  anxiety,  for  no 
l)ul]ets  will  come  hissing  against  them,  and  they  can  stay  at 
home  and  dress  their  ulcers  while  the  brave,  strong  young  men 
are  rotting  on  the  battle-field.^ 

The  morally  inferior  are  also  kept  alive.  To  begin  with, 
all  convicts,  as  a  matter  of  principle,  and  also  all  cowards,  for 
in  the  long  run  no  surgeon-major,  however  energetic,  can  do 
an^'thing  to  prevent  shirking,  so  systematically  is  it  carried 
out,  and  to  such  a  pitch  of  refinement  is  it  brought.  If  shirk- 
ers are  called  up  at  all,  they  are  sent  where  there  is  no  danger, 
as  sappers,  clerks,  or  ambulance  men  behind  the  front,  or  else 
they  hang  about  the  military  hospitals ;  but  most  of  them  are 
rejected  for  good  and  all. 

For  them,  therefore,  war  amounts  to  insuring  their  lives; 
and  this  "regiment  of  cripples,"  who  in  the  open  competition 
of  peace  could  hardly  hold  their  own  against  its  more  capable 
competitors,  are  now  getting  the  best  posts,  and  are  highly 
paid.  The  effect  of  this  caimot  be  overestimated.  It  may  be 
assumed  that  in  such  a  never-ending  war  as  this  fully  twenty- 
five  per  cent,  of  the  healthy  half  of  the  population  - — that  is, 
about  two  millions — will  either  die  or  be  seriously  incapaci- 
tated cripples.  As  the  latter,  about  one  million,  must  now  be 
classed  with  the  unfit,  these  alone  will  number  about  thirty 
per  cent,  more  than  the  fit. 

1  "Jst  der  Kriej:^  ein  wisacnschaftliches  Gesetz?"  ("Is  War  a  Scientific 
Law?'")  l)v  C'ltarles  Ptichet.  in  tlie  "Moniatisches  Jahrhundert"  for  1912. 
No.  VI,  Vol.  2 

2  That  is,  of  Germany.  These  words  were  written  in  1915. — Trans- 
lator. 


SELECTION  BY  MEANS  OF  WAR  83 

But  what  is  perhaps  still  worse  is  that  the  unfit,  stay-at- 
home  half  of  the  population  should  be  reaping  exceptionally 
great  and  permanent  benefits  from  the  war.  The  stay-at- 
home  lawyer  or  doctor  is,  of  course,  not  necessarily  inferior, 
but  even  should  he  be  so,  he  naturally  gets  the  practice  of  his 
abler  competitor  who  has  had  to  go,  just  as  the  stay-at-home 
commercial  man  gets  the  customers  of  his  perhaps  biologically 
superior  competitor  at  the  front.  Thus  the  thoroughly  healthy 
portion  of  the  population,  even  supposing  they  come  back 
from  the  war  with  unbroken  bones,  are  often  injured,  per- 
haps irreparably,  in  their  business  or  profession.  True,  they 
continue  to  live,  but  as  far  as  the  general  public  is  concerned 
they  might  as  well  be  dead,  since  their  former  fields  of  labor 
and  activity  are  now  no  longer  open  to  them.  Moreover, 
they  will  now  be  compelled  to  provide  for  the  support  of  the 
war  cripples,  war  orphans,  and  war  widows.  It  is  estimated 
that  we  shaU  have  to  spend  1,500,000,000  marks  ($375,000,000) 
annually  for  this,  to  which  must  be  added  no  less  a  sum  for 
interest  on  war  loans.  Consequently  the  healthy  worker  in 
future  will  have  to  give  up  about  two  hundred  marks  (fifty 
dollars)  of  his  income  annually  to  the  Government  for  this 
purpose.^  The  biological  injury  thus  inflicted  upon  the  popu- 
lation in  general  cannot  be  expressed  in  figures ;  but  one  thing 
must  never  be  forgotten,  and  that  is  that  all  this  ' '  curbed  in- 
telligence" can  hardly  fail  to  become  anything  but  discon- 
tented elements,  which,  again,  can  scarcely  be  for  the  good  of 
the  community  in  general. 

And,  again,  even  among  soldiers  death  the  reaper  cannot 
reap  quite  as  he  chooses,  for  naturally  even  at  the  front  the 
brave,  capable  fellows  are  given  harder  and  therefore  more 
dangerous  tasks,  and  consequently  are  more  decimated.  There 
was  a  time  when  their  greater  ability  might  have  availed  to 
protect  them  somewhat  against  dangers,  but  hardly  nowadays, 
for  bullets  are  no  respecters  of  persons.     In  short,  were  the 

»I  should  again  remind  the  reader  that  this  is  only  a  1915  estimate. 
— Tranalator 


84  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

war  to  last  long  enough,  it  must  infallibly  result  in  a  belliger- 
ent people  consisting  solely  of  inferior  elements,  with  the  pos- 
sible exception  of  a  handful  of  commanders-in-chief,  who  are 
usually  less  exposed  to  the  dangers  of  war  than  other  men.^ 

Yet  another  point.  It  is  the  stay-at-homes,  the  idiotic  and 
sickly  "indigenous  race,"  which  are  producing  the  generation 
to  come,  and  this  in  particular  is  almost  universally  the  ease 
with  a  nation  whose  soldiers  are  in  the  enemy's  countrj^  and 
who  therefore  appear  predestined  to  conquer,  whereas  in  the 
ease  of  a  nation  who  have  the  enemy  within  their  borders,  a 
good  many,  at  any  rate,  owe  their  being  to  the  fittest  elements 
in  the  race,  those  capable  of  "taking  the  field."  - 

§  34. — What  a  War  of  Exierminaiioji  Means 

Thus  to-day  the  original  conception  of  war  is  distorted  until 
it  has  become  completely  reversed,  simply  because  there  is 
no  longer  anything  natural  about  war;  it  is  now  merely  a 
romantic  reminiscence.  Now,  it  might  be,  and  has  been  said, 
that  the  benefits  of  war  come  afterward.  It  might  be  thought, 
however,  that  any  one  thus  contemplating  the  remote  effects 
of  war  ought  seriously  to  reflect  upon  its  inevitable  results. 
That  is,  he  ought  to  think  out  his  ideas  to  their  logical  con- 
clusions, which  seems  easy,  but  is  often  very  difficult. 

The  idea  of  war  as  a  factor  likely  to  favor  the  selection  of 
the  fittest,  and  thus  promote  human  evolution,  is  simple 
enough.  War  is  here  looked  upon  as  representing  that  re- 
lentless, or  rather  that  disinterested,  justice  which  allows  the 
fit  to  survive  and  destroys  the  unfit.  Those  who  consider  this 
right  should  act  accordingly,  and  proceed  to  draw  up  rules 
accordingly.  They  ought  to  adopt  the  usages  of  war  of  which 
we  read  in  ancient  history,  rules  by  which  old  men  were  killed 
and  also  unborn  children,  but  not  the  seemingly  humane  ( !  ) 
rules  of  modern  times — rules  which  make  war  a  farce  in  the 

1  Thus,  for  instance,  despite  the  enormous  losses  of  this  war,  the 
numerous  royal  families  have  lost  very  few  indeed  of  their  members. 

2  Cf.  the  statistics  in  §  38. 


SELECTION  BY  MEANS  OF  \YAR  85 

sense  in  which  a  natural  scientist  uses  tlie  word ;  that  is  to  say, 
cause  it  to  promote  negative  selection,  and  thus  convert  it  into 
a  means  of  deterioration. 

The  gulf  which  apparently  separates  the  selfish  human  be- 
ing of  to-day  from  the  humane  promoter  of  civilization  is 
merely  apparent ;  and  here  I  would  recall  what  I  have  already 
said  about  struggle  between  animals  and  struggle  between  man 
and  man.  Both  are  justifiable  in  themselves  and  both  can  be 
carried  on  logicall}^  Difficulties  do  not  arise  until  we  begin  to 
imagine  that  it  is  allowable  to  carry  on  an  animal  struggle 
against  human  beings  and  by  human  methods.  This  is  sense- 
less, and  therefore  criminal ;  for  war  as  waged  at  present 
can  be  considered  only  a  justifiable  form  of  struggle  for  exist- 
ence if  the  nations  against  whom  we  are  waging  war  are  not 
looked  upon  as  human  beings,  at  any  rate  not  as  human  beings 
on  a  level  with  ourselves;  that  is,  if  it  is  de>.ired  to  carry  on  a 
war  of  extermination  against  barbarians  so  as  to  enable  true 
humanity  to  find  room  upon  and  spread  over  the  earth.  No 
European  will  feel  that  he  is  justified  in  considering  another 
European  as  a  barbarian.  The  utmost  which  might  be  asked  is 
whether  we  are  not  entitled  to  consider  ourselves  a  superior 
race  in  comparison  with  certain  undeveloped  races,  such  as  the 
Andamans  or  Tierra  del  Fuegans.  "What  will  undoubtedly 
occur  is  that  these  people  will  gradually  be  exterminated  by 
the  wliite  race,  though  it  has  long  been  clear  that  it  would  be 
extremely  foolish  to  make  war  upon  them.  They  die  out  of 
themselves  wherever  they  come  in  contact  with  whites,  blood- 
less warfare  being  always  more  effectual  than  bloody. 

There  is  only  one  race  for  which  this  question  of  racial  su- 
periority might  be  profoundly  important — the  Mongolian.  I 
do  not  know  who  are  the  superior,  the  ^Mongolians  or  we  our- 
selves, but  I  can  quite  understand  our  looking  on  the  Mon- 
golian race  as  enemies,  and  that,  for  instance,  p]uropeans  on 
the  highest  plane  would  not  easily  be  induced  to  have  a  child 
by  a  Mongolian  woman,  at  any  rate  not  to  own  it.  I  can  there- 
fore also  fully  understand  that  we  or  the  iNlongolians  might 


86  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

say,  "Only  one  of  us  two  races  can  rule  over  the  world,  and 
we  want  that  race  to  be  ours. ' ' 

In  this  case  the  biologically  weaker  race — that  is,  the  one 
which  may  rest  assured  that  in  ordinary  course  it  would  fall 
a  victim  to  natural  selection — might  perhaps  be  justified  in 
saying,  "As  there  is  no  chance  of  our  getting  the  upper  hand 
by  natural  and  lawful  means,  we  will  try  to  take  by  force 
what  nature  withholds  from  us."  This  shows  very  plainly 
that  for  the  really  strong  war  is  superfluous ;  and  as  obviously 
it  is  generally  folly  for  the  weak,  it  is  self-evident  that,  save 
in  the  rarest  instances,  there  can  be  no  possible  object  what- 
ever in  it. 

Now,  it  is  possible  that  one  such  rare  instance  may  be  af- 
forded by  the  Mongolians,  for,  unlike  all  the  other  colored 
races,  they  seem  to  be  in  certain  respects  fitter  than  Europeans, 
although  it  is  impossible  to  know  exactly  how  they  will  be  af- 
fected when  once  they  are  drawn  into  the  vortex  of  modern 
civilization.  Meantime,  however,  the  sons  of  Heaven  have  the 
enormous  advantage  of  being  able  to  work  equally  well  under 
all  heavens,  whether  in  the  icy  wastes  of  the  tundras  or  under 
the  burning  sun  of  Sumatra.  Apparently  this  is  a  special 
Mongolian  peculiarity,  for  even  primitive  Teutonic  peoples 
simply  melted  away  under  the  Southern  sun  to  which  their  im- 
pulse led  them,  and  negro  races  get  consumption  if  transferred 
to  colder  climates. 

If  all  this  is  really  the  case,  then  the  greater  part  of  the 
habitable  world  belongs  to  the  Mongols,  and  likewise  the  over- 
lordship  thereof ;  for  it  seems  out  of  the  question,  seeing  how 
much  going  to  and  fro  there  already  is  and  how  much  more 
there  is  certain  to  be  in  the  near  future,  that  two  races  should 
live  side  by  side  and  yet  ajjart.  They  will  mix,  and  one  will 
prevail  over  the  other.  ' 

But  perhaps  even  the  most  humane  of  us  all  would  not  de- 
sire this,  and  therefore  I  can  imagine  our  pointing  with  par- 
donable pride  to  our  civilization,  and  saying  that  we  are  ready 
to  take  up  arms  in  defense  of  it.     You  Mongols  may  be  better 


SELECTION  BY  MEANS  OF  WAR  87 

than  wc  are,  we  would  say,  but  you  are  different.  AYe  do  not 
want  to  know  anything  about  your  civilization,  even  suppos- 
ing it  to  be  superior;  we  mean  to  keep  our  own.  From  this 
point  of  view  I  can  imagine  a  war,  but  then  it  must  be  really 
a  relentless,  merciless  war. 

There  are  now  in  the  world  five  hundred  millions  of  us 
Europeans  or  white  men  originally  from  Europe,  and  a  thou- 
sand millions  of  various  colored  races.  I  believe  we  have  even 
now  the  technical  means  at  our  disposal  for  exterminating 
these  thousand  millions  in  the  course  of  the  next  twenty  years. 
After  twenty  years,  however,  we  shall  no  longer  be  in  a 
position  to  do  this,  as  soon,  that  is,  as  China  has  armed  her 
whole  population,  constructs  her  own  dreadnoughts,  and  manu- 
factures her  own  cannon  and  shells,  as  Japan  is  already  do- 
ing. 

In  the  ensuing  twenty  years,  therefore,  it  is  possible  that 
the  fate  of  the  world  will  be  decided  once  and  for  all,  and 
the  responsibility  for  this  decision  rests  with  the  five  hundred 
millions  of  Europeans.  The  Mongolians  need  do  nothing  but 
wait,  for  time  and  space  are  on  their  side. 

At  a  time  when  the  fate  of  so  many  men  is  hanging  in  the 
balance,  Europeans  may,  perhaps  must,  be  asked  whether  on 
careful  consideration  they  mean  to  declare  all  colored  races 
barbarians,  and  then  begin  a  struggle  for  existence,  in  other 
words  a  war  of  extermination,  and  not  a  ridiculous  war  for 
power,  against  everything  non-European.  When  once  so  ter- 
rible a  conception  as  that  of  such  a  war  is  grasped,  then,  if 
anything  save  senseless  cruelty  is  to  be  the  result,  it  also  must 
be  thought  out  to  the  end,  and  there  would  have  to  be  a  war 
sans  treve  et  sans  reUiche. 

We  must  not  spare  even  the  child  in  its  mother's  womb,  and 
■  must  tolerate  no  bastards.  Such  a  war  would  be  ghastly,  but 
there  would  be  some  object  in  it.  It  is  useless  to  talk  of  the 
justice  of  a  war,  but  in  a  sense  this  ghastliest  of  wars  is  the 
justest  because,  at  any  rate,  "it  serves  its  own  particular  pur- 
pose. ' ' 


88  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

To  me  it  seems  at  least  conceivable  that  some  such  war 
might  succeed,  although  I  certainl3^  do  not  believe  this.  His- 
tory, indeed,  proves  over  and  over  that  the  despair  of  nations 
fighting  for  their  lives  gives  rise  to  strength  which  enables 
them  to  triumph  over  all  technical  expedients.  Here,  again, 
any  attempt  to  interfere  with  the  justice  of  history  by  such 
brutal  methods  might  only  too  easily  hasten  the  downfall  of 
Europe.  European  nations,  as  I  think,  would  do  better  to 
concentrate  all  their  economic,  technical,  and  scientific  re- 
sources on  increasing  their  internal  vital  energy,  that  is,  on 
promoting  race  hj^gicne  in  every  respect,  and  thus  endeavor  to 
become  the  equals  and  even  the  superiors  of  the  Mongols. 

This  opens  up  vistas  of  victories  not  purchased  with  blood — 
victories  which  I  am  profoundly  convinced  are  within  the 
bounds  of  possibility.  This  inextinguishable  hope  is  due  to 
my  proud  European  racial  instinct.  I  will  not,  and  I  refuse 
to,  admit  that  the  Mongols  have  in  the  long  run  greater  vital- 
ity than  I.  I  trust  that  the  majority  of  Europeans  think  as 
I  do,  and  that  never  shall  we  show  the  Asiatics  such  a  sign  of 
weakness  as  to  draw  the  sword  against  them.  Even  if  the 
European  nations  were  faint-hearted,  even  if  they  were  doubt- 
ful of  ultimate  peaceful  victory,  and  if  nothing  seemed  to 
stand  in  the  way  of  their  extermination  bj^  force,  even  then  I 
would  shrink  from  resort  to  force,  and  I  am  convinced  that 
the  majority  of  mankind  agree  with  me. 

Every  one,  however,  must  compound  with  his  own  con- 
science, and  should  any  one  be  anxious  to  proceed  to  victory 
by  way  of  force,  I  will  go  a  step  further  to  please  him.  I  feel 
that  all  Europeans  belong  to  the  same  race,  and  I  am  proud 
of  this.  But  others  certainly  feel  this  less  keenly  than  I  do, 
and  they  let  their  wholesome  race  instinct  run  to  waste  in  all 
manner  of  fantastic  and  useless  notions,  such  as  the  supposed 
existence  of  a  Teutonic  race.^ 

But  there  are  those  who  believe  in  the  Teutons,  Germans, 
or  Prussians  having  a  right  to  predominate.     I  shall  not  here 

1  Cf.  §§  99-105,  about  race  patriotism. 


SELECTION  BY  MEANS  OF  WAR  89 

discuss  the  justification  for  such  ideas,  but  those  who  would 
fain  lead  such  small  aggregates  of  human  beings  to  victory 
must  at  any  rate  ask  themselves  whether  they  are  able  and, 
if  able,  also  ivilling,  to  tight  out  this  fight  in  the  only  way  in 
which  it  can  answer  its  purpose. 

As  for  Teutonism,  the  question  is  as  follows:  take  the  one 
hundred  million  Gei-mans  or,  properly  speaking,  the  twenty 
millions  more  or  less  pure  Teutons  living  in  various  parts  of 
Europe,  most  of  whom  will  have  nothing  whatever  to  do  with 
the  conception  of  Teutonism.  Do  they  believe  that  they  can 
with  any  prospect  of  success  embark  upon  a  struggle  against 
forces  from  fifteen  to  a  hundred  times  more  numerous,  and 
do  they  really  mean  to  destroy  these ?  If  they  have  made  up 
their  minds  to  this,  then  let  them  make  the  attempt,  and  they 
will  be  fighting  for  an  idea,  and  for  an  object  which  is  at 
least  conceivable. 

We  are  therefore  faced  with  the  following  alternative :  we 
must  either  resolve  to  live  in  peace  with  the  French,  Russians, 
English,  and  whatever  all  their  names  may  be,  or  we  must 
wage  a  war  of  extermination  upon  them,  a  war  whose  purpose 
it  is  not  to  leave  one  of  them  alive. 

Whoever,  therefore,  decides  for  war  is,  at  any  rate,  no  fool, 
and  has  logic  on  his  side.  Nevertheless,  I  hope  and  believe 
that  even  those  who  most  delight  in  war  will  incline  toward 
peace  when  once  they  realize  what  is  the  inevitable  alternative. 
But  this  senseless  playing  at  war  which  is  now  devastating 
Europe  must  be  the  last  of  its  kind. 

2.— THE  ALLEGED  TONIC  EFFECTS  OF  W^A.R 

§35. — The  Hardening  and  Enervating  Effects  of  ^Yar  and 
Peace 

It  has  actually  been  said  that  war  directly  tends  to  perfect 
mankind!  The  notion  that  peace  enervates  men  and  war 
hardens  them  seems  to  be  taken  as  much  for  granted  by  most 
persons  as  the  view  that  becoming  enervated  is  a  crime  against 


90  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

civilization  and  becoming  hardened  tlie  contrary.  Both  opin- 
ions are  absolutelj'  improved  commonplaces. 

That  these  "hardening  virtues"  must  not  be  carried  too  far 
even  the  Germans  have  just  realized ;  for  although  we  used  to 
envy  the  English  their  physical  fitness,  our  hatred  has  taught 
us  that  to  resort  to  all  manner  of  strengthening  devices  is 
mere  "disgusting  pride  of  muscle."  That  some  good  can  be 
learned  even  from  hatred  is  likev^'ise  obvious,  for  after  vv^hat 
has  already  been  said  about  selection  based  on  intellectual 
qualities  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  we  should  not  make 
any  one-sided  attempts  to  strengthen  the  body  at  the  cost  of 
the  mind.  British  sports,  which  are  popular  throughout  the 
world,  may  be  suited  to  the  whole  world,  which  matter  little 
to  us;  but  their  imitation  in  Germany  was  injurious  to  Ger- 
man genius. 

It  is  also  idle  to  discuss,  as  is  often  done,  whether  we  ought 
to  strive  to  attain  to  the  Kalokagathie  of  the  ancient  Greeks, 
the  union  of  beauty  and  goodness.  Personally  I  can  scarcely 
imagine  anything  tiner,  attached  as  I  am  to  the  times  and 
people  of  ancient  Hellas.  But  I  realize  that  the  finest  flowers 
of  German  intellect  did  not  grow  in  the  soil  of  Kalokagathie. 
There  is  a  certain  delicacy  of  German  thought  perhaps  in- 
compatible with  the  iron  muscles  of  a  prize-tighter.  I  am  not 
referring  to  the  mystics  and  romantics  or  even  to  Kant  and 
Schiller,  for  I  know  that  I  shall  be  told  in  reply  that  the  days 
are  over  when  we  have  need  of  such  dreamers:  I  am  referring 
to  the  most  vigorous  men  of  the  nineteenth  century,  who  have 
rendered  Germanj'-  great  practical  service,  which  is  the  one 
thing  which  seems  to  matter  now.  Such  men,  for  instance,  as 
Siemens,  Krupp,  Helmholtz,  Abbe,  Ballin,  and  Dernburg,  cer- 
tainly abided  by  the  old  Latin  precept  "mens  sana  in  corpore 
sano/'  but  it  is  hard  to  picture  them  as  prize-fighters  or  even 
as  exceptionally  physically  "fit  " 

^Muscular  training,  therefore,  should  not  be  carried  too  far, 
and  for  this  reason  many  physical  exercises  have  been  con- 
('iMiDcd  in  Germany.     English  boxing,  like  Spanish  bull-fight- 


SELECTION  BY  MEANS  OF  WAR  91 

ing,  is  forbidden  in  Germany,  owing  to  its  alleged  brutalizing 
tendencies;  and  strong  arguments  have  been  urged  against 
foot-ball  and  base-ball,  on  the  ground  that  both  frequently 
cause  bloodshed.  Nevertheless,  there  is  apparently  no  ob- 
jection to  bloodshed  in  war,  the  moral  element  in  which  is 
supposed  to  prevent  the  killing  of  men  from  having  those 
brutalizing  effects  which  otherwise  appear  even  if  it  be  merely 
animals  which  are  killed.^  That  this  is  not  really  the  case  is 
proved  by  the  increase  of  crimes  of  violence  observable  after 
all  wars,  even  after  the  Franco-Prussian  War.  While  wars 
are  actually  going  on,  there  is  of  course  a  decrease  of  absolute 
figures,  because  most  of  those  forming  the  criminal  classes  are 
at  the  front.  On  the  other  hand,  even  in  this  war  an  alarming 
increase  of  youthful  offenders  who  have  remained  at  home 
is  noticeable.  Although  owing  to  scarcity  of  magistrates  and 
other  causes,  all  comparatively  venal  offenses  are  as  much  as 
possible  treated  as  such  and  left  unpunished,  nevertheless,  the 
number  of  juvenile  offenders  in  Berlin,  for  instance,  increased 
by  more  than  half,  which  clearly  proves  how  out  of  hand 
young  people  get  in  war.- 

But  even  if  this  moral  deterioration  were  considered  as  of 
no  importance,  is  it  in  any  sense  true  that  war  is  even  capable 
of  physically  invigorating  a  nation  ?  For  a  long  time  past  the 
Swiss  and  the  English  have  waged  no  wars,  and  yet  they  have 
remained  vigorous  and  warlike.^  On  the  other  hand,  the 
Turks  and  the  French  have  alwaj's  been  held  to  be  the  most 
warlike  nations  in  Europe,  and  yet  both  nations  are  described 
as  being  degenerate.  The  "Sick  Man  of  the  Bosporus"  used 
to  be  as  proverbial  as  the  "degenerate  Frenchman."     This 

1  An  alarming  instance  of  moral  confusion  is  the  formation  of  ani- 
mal protection  societies  for  the  front. 

-  F.  von  Liszt,  in  a  lecture  about  juvenile  offenders  in  war,  delivered 
in  January,  191G,  asserted  that  in  1913,  110!)  young  persons  of  the 
male  sex  were  charged  and  punished;  in  1915,  however,  1790.  This 
estimate  was  based  on  the  three  first  quarterly  reports  of  the  Berlin 
Head  Office  for  the  Protection  of  Young  Persons 

»  Colonial  wars,  even  the  Boer  War  and  the  Crimean  War,  scarcely 
affected  the  mass  of  the  British  people. 


92  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

general  opinion  is  not  affected  because  many  persons  to-day- 
regard  Turkey  with  other  eyes  on  account  of  her  being  their 
ally,  and  also  because,  after  the  experiences  of  the  ]\Iarne  and 
the  Yser,  they  are  no  longer  inclined  to  call  the  French  de- 
generate. 

A  famous  example,  however,  to  be  found  in  all  school  books, 
is  the  "winter  in  capua."  Since  Livy  ^  stated  that  in  such 
a  center  of  debauchery  Hannibal 's  armies  became  degenerate, 
every  one  has  repeated  this.  What?  This  army,  which  had 
fought  for  years  in  Spain,  which  could  claim  to  have  per- 
formed the  incomparably  difficult  feat  of  crossing  the  ice  and 
snow-covered  Little  St.  Bernard,  a  feat  which  caused  the  death 
of  one  third  of  the  men ;  this  army  which  won  the  great  vic- 
tories of  Ticino,  of  the  Trebia,  and  Lake  Trasimeno,  and  in 
the  succeeding  years  the  battle  of  Cannce,  perhaps  the  most 
glorious  in  the  history  of  the  w^orld ;  this  army  is  said  to  have 
become  so  much  degenerated  by  a  single  winter  in  Capua  that' 
Marcellus  was  able  to  cut  it  to  pieces  at  Nola?  Then  Jean 
Paul  must  have  been  right  in  saying  that  "steeling  warriors 
by  war  lasts  no  longer  than  starching  linen." 

If  this  is  really  true,  if  half  a  year  of  peace  suffices  to  de- 
prive a  tried  and  experienced  army  of  all  its  strength,  and  if, 
therefore,  in  order  to  be  proof  against  such  degeneration,  we 
must  go  to  war  at  least  twice  a  year,  it  would  seem  too  high  a 
price  to  pay.  Most  of  us  would  rather  do  without  being  hard- 
ened than  have  to  live  in  a  perpetual  state  of  warfare. 

§  36. — War  Weariness 

Perhaps,  however,  it  was  not  Capua  at  all,  but  the  preceding 
war  which  unfitted  Hannibal's  army  for  war.  It  is  an  actual 
fact,  knowTi  to  all  military  writers,  that  after  a  certain  period 
of  warfare  soldiers  attain  their  maximum  of  military  efficiency, 
a  period  estimated  by  the  various  authors  at  from  about  six 
to  twelve  months.  The  reason  generally  alleged  for  this  is 
that  the  soldier,  inured  to  battle,  gradually  becomes  undis- 

1  Livy,  "Histories,"  Book  XXIII,  Chapter  XVIII. 


SELECTION  BY  MEANS  OF  WAR  93 

ciplined,  owing  to  the  freedom  of  life  at  the  front  and  in  camp, 
and  he  acquires  certain  tricks  ^  which  help  him  to  guard 
against  danger,  and  that  therefore  he  cannot  be  ordered  to 
advance,  regardless  of  everything,  in  the  same  way  as  the 
youthful  new-comer,  who  presses  forward  in  defiance  of  death. 
Then  there  is  that  negative  selection  which  in  time  deprives 
an  army  of  all  its  bravest  men.  The  famous  Marshal  von  der 
Goltz  -  writes,  in  reference  to  this  subject : 

It  is  natural  that  death  should  reap  his  richest  han^est  from  among 
the  best  men,  for  the  bravest  go  on  in  front,  and  they  are  the  tirst 
to  fall  victims  to  the  hail  of  bullets.  No  one  will  hesitate  to  pay 
this  tribute  to  the  dead  or  to  admit  tliat  tlie  value  of  an  aniiy  de- 
creases with  every  battle  fought. 

Thus,  in  the  opinion  of  military  men  qualified  to  judge, 
does  war  itself  help  to  cause  armies  gradually  to  degenerate. 

§  37.— T/te  Injury  done  io  the  Brain  hy  IVar 

But  there  is  yet  another  fact,  perhaps  the  most  important 
of  all.  It  was  the  Kusso- Japanese  War  that  tirst  called  our 
attention  to  the  absolutely  unparalleled  way  in  which  the 
nervous  system  is  shattered  b}^  modern  warfare,  even  more 
than  by  former  wars.  This  was  first  noticed  not  by  a  military 
man  or  a  medical  man,  but  by  the  young  Russian  author  An- 
drejev,-^  whose  book  "Das  rote  Lachen"  ("Red  Laughter") 
gives  a  distressing  description  of  how  men  are  broken  down 
by  war  and  made  incapable  of  enduring  the  manifold  horrors 
of  another  campaign. 

Andrejev  believes  that  this  "red  laughter,''  which  then 
resounded  over  Russia's  vast  plains,  was  equivalent  to  the 
shattering  of  Russia's  forces.     He  was  admitted  to  be  right, 

1  In  P'njrlisli  in  tlie  ori<;inal. — Translator. 

2  C.  von  der  Golt/,  "Leon  Gambetta  und  seine  Arnieen,"  1S77: 
Berlin,  1'.  Schneider  &  Co.  At  tlie  time  Goltz  A\as  reprimanded  lie- 
cause  of  this  now  universally  admired  book,  and  punished  by  being  sent 
to  Ciera. 

3"r)aH  rote  [/aclien,''  liy  L  Andr-jev,  1905.  Translated  into  German 
by  l^chol/. :   Herlin. 


94  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

but  people  consoled  themselves  by  saj^ing  that  this  nervous 
collapse  was  something  peculiar  to  the  slackness  of  Slav  char- 
acter. Shortly  after  the  outbreak  of  war,  indeed,  Bonhoeft'er, 
the  German  mental  specialist,  delivered  an  address  repudiating 
the  expression  "war  mentality,"  which  used  to  be  frequently 
heard,  although  he  merely  means  that  there  is  no  difference 
between  the  injurious  mental  effects  of  war  and  other  mental 
infirmities  caused  by  physical  and  mental  exertion  and  im- 
pressions. But  as  war  is  for  most  persons  the  greatest  physi- 
cal and  emotional  experience  of  their  lives,  it  is  not  to  be  won- 
dered at  that  dormant  tendencies  to  disease  in  those  who  enter 
into  it  should  be  aroused  and  strengthened  in  war  more  than  at 
other  times. 

At  all  events,  no  one  who  has  frequent  opportunity  of  ob- 
serving officers  or  men  returning  from  the  front  can  have 
failed  to  observe  the  red  laughter  of  war.  Very  often  a  man's 
experiences  on  campaign  have  caused  him  to  go  mad,  and 
even  when  matters  did  not  reach  this  pitch,  nevertheless  sol- 
diers were  ill ;  they  turned  over  in  bed,  unable  to  sleep,  and 
if  they  did  fall  asleep,  they  were  tormented  by  bad  dreams. 
Tliey  lived  through  the  battle  over  and  over  again,  and 
screamed  aloud,  sometimes  in  terror,  sometimes  in  anger,  some- 
times even  in  a  tone  of  command.  Placid  men  were  incred- 
ibly irritable,  so  that  their  wives  were  unable  to  live  with 
them  on  the  same  happy  terms  as  before.  Strong  men  wept 
at  the  least  tritie,  being  themselves  aware  that  they  had  lost 
all  self-control ;  and  deep  down  in  the  hearts  of  all  was  dread 
of  the  horrors  of  battle,  although  training  and  custom  pre- 
vented them  for  the  most  part  from  admitting  this. 

The  remarkable  thing  is  that  these  serious  mental  and  other 
derangements  almost  without  exception  did  not  show  them- 
selves until  the  men  had  returned  from  the  front  and  were 
exposed  to  the  contrast  of  their  own  peaceful  homes.  To  such 
a  pass  did  matters  come  that  something  had  to  be  done;  and 
the  military''  authorities,  seeing  how  difficult  it  was  to  induce 
men,  especially  wounded  men,  to  return  to  the  front,  once  they 


SELECTION  BY  MEANS  OF  WAR  95 

had  been  home  again,  in  many  cases  curtailed  soldiers'  leave 
to  the  utmost  possible  extent. 

Now,  these  observations  are  based  on  absolute  facts,  and 
they  suggest  that  it  was  not  Capua  which  ruined  Hannibal's 
army,  but  the  hard  fighting  that  army  had  previously  gone 
through,  and  that  the  rest  at  Capua  was  only  the  cause  which 
let  loose  so  much  evil,  just  as  happens  when  a  man  goes  home 
to  rest. 

Of  course  a  man  on  campaign  must  learn  to  ride  and  inarch 
and  to  defy  inclement  weather  and  the  discomforts  of  bad 
(|uarters,  and  it  is  certainly  true  that  in  a  sense  this  tends  to 
harden  him  physically.  But  it  is  no  less  true  that  man  does 
not  win  victories  with  his  legs  and  arms,  but  with  his  brain, 
and  there  is  no  doubt  that  war  is  injurious  to  the  brain. 

For  the  most  important  part  of  man,  therefore,  war  is  in 
no  sense  a  tonic  or  fortifying  medicine,  but  on  the  contrary 
has  a  lowering  effect. 

§  38. — The  In/Jnencc  of  War  on  the  Birth-rate 

Now,  as  after  a  few  wars  a  slight  increase  in  the  birth-rate 
was  noticed,  it  was  thought  that  war  must  have  a  good  effect 
on  national  vitality.  Such  increase,  however,  is  always  slight, 
and  nothing  like  enough  to  compensate  for  the  preceding  de- 
crease of  the  birth-rate.  This  appears  very  plainly  from  the 
following  diagram,  showing  the  birth-rate  curv'es  during  the 
years  1868-1872,  and  also  from  Fig.  2  on  page  98,  showing 
the  birth-rate  curves  from  1830-1912. 

The  birth-rate  of  a  nation  is  far  from  depending  merely 
upon  its  biological  standing,  for  in  reality  every  nation  is 
capable  of  producing  an  incomparably  larger  number  of  chil- 
dren than  is  ever  actually  the  case.  The  reasons  for  this  are 
in  general  prudential :  people  feel  instinctively  that  there  are 
no  adequate  means  of  supporting  more  children. 

Now,  war  makes  room,  first,  because  a  certain  number  of 
men  die,  and,  next,  because  in  war-time  fewer  children  are 
always  born.     The  preceding  diagram  (Fig.  1)  plainly  shows 


96 


THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 


that  nine  months  after  the  outbreak  of  war  the  birth-rate  be- 
gins to  fall  suddenh^,  and  that  it  remains  low  till  about  nine 
months  after  the  conclusion  of  peace.  Now,  the  curve  of  the 
birth-rate  which  might  have  been  expected  had  there  been  no 


mmmmm 


Fig.  1. 


zrm 


Actual  luimber  of  male  birtlis. 

rprobable  number  of  male  birtlis  1  had  there  been  no  war. 
J  "■  ''         "      "        "         ^had    the    last-line    troops 

[  I      not    been    disbanded. 

Total  deficiency  of  births  and  of  births  of  weaklings. 
Period  of  mobilization  and  semi-mobilization. 
'Ilie   same  period  postponed   for  nine  months. 
Absolute   number   of   male    births    in    Prussia    in    the    years 
1868-1872. 

The  figures  are  given  in  thousands  per  month,  and  are  taken  from  the 
Prussian  Annual  Statistical  Reports.  In  order  to  make  the  diagram 
clearer,  the  figures  are  calculated  for  montlis  of  equal  length;  that  is, 
the  figures  for  the  months  of  Ajjril,  June,   September,   and  November 

31 
are  raised  by  —  =1.033,  those  for  February,  186'J,  1870,  and  1871  by 

30 
31  31 

—  =  1.12,  and  those  for  February,  18«8  and  1872,  by  —  =  1.07. 
28  29 


war  (see  the  dotted  line)  is  fairly  accurately  known  from 
the  three  preceding  years  (1868-1870),  Consequently,  it  is 
easy  to  see  that  the  dotted  part  shov/s  the  numbers  of  those 
who  ought  to  have  been  born,  but  were  not — more  than  a 
hundred  thousand  children.     Add  a  hundred  thousand  deaths 


SELECTION  BY  MEANS  OF  WAR  97 

directly  caused  by  the  war,  and  we  have  a  decrease  of  popu- 
lation of  altogether  nearly  one  quarter  of  a  million,  a  deficit 
which  cannot  be  made  up  in  anything  like  the  time  in  which 
it  arose. 

Further  consideration  leads  to  the  discovery  of  other  im- 
portant effects  of  war  on  the  birth-rate.  It  is  clear  that  even 
in  the  first  nine  mouths  of  the  Franco-Prussian  War  (1871) 
relativel}'  too  few  children  were  born.  There  may  be  various 
causes  for  this,  among  them  commercial  depression  owing  to 
acute  danger  of  war,  an  increase  in  the  number  of  premature 
births  owing  to  the  excitement  of  the  first  months  of  the  war, 
and  increase  in  the  number  of  artificially  induced  miscar- 
riages owing  to  anxiety  and  uncertainty.  This,  although  not 
a  direct  result  of  war,  is  nevertheless  a  direct  result  of  prepa- 
rations for  war. 

What  is  particularly  remarkable,  however,  is  that  in  No- 
vember, 1871,  the  birth-rate  should  comparatively  suddenly 
have  risen  again  to  its  former  level ;  that  is,  even  in  April, 
1871,  very  nearly  the  normal  luimber  of  children  were  en- 
gendered. But  then  only  the  garrison  troops  which  had  re- 
mained in  Germany  had  been  demobilized,  while  the  whole  of 
the  great  army  on  active  service  was  still  kept  in  France. 
Therefore  these  comparatively  unfit  human  beings  actually 
begot  more  children  than  they  would  have  done  in  normal 
times,  in  fact,  nearly  as  many  as  are  indicated  by  the  striped 
portion  of  the  diagram,  or  about  sixty  thousand  children. 
This  also  strongly  bears  out  my  contentions,  first,  that  the 
birth-rate  does  not  depend  upon  biological  fitness,  and,  sec- 
ondly, that  one  consequence  of  war  is  that  a  larger  percentage 
of  children  have  unfit  men  as  their  fathers,  and  that  the  race 
thus  becomes  deteriorated. 

What  momentous  consequences  M'ill  be  those  of  such  a  long 
war  as  tiie  present,  which,  moreover,  has  been  carried  on  under 
conditions  of  universal  service,  it  is  difficult  to  forecast ;  but 
some  idea  may  be  formed  when  it  is  reflected  that  in  1870  the 
birth-rate   fell   only  from  forty   to   thirty-five, — that  is,   by 


98 


THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 


about  twelve  per  cent., — but  has  already  fallen  by  about  half. 

In  the  Hrst  two  years  of  war  about  two  million  too  few  chil- 
dren will  have  been  born,  and  between  one  and  two  million, 
besides,  who  are  below  par  rather  than  normal.  These  four 
millions,  together  with  the  two  millions  loss  directly  attribut- 
able to  the  war,  are  in  themselves  enough  to  decimate  the  Ger- 
man people. 

It  is  therefore  absurd  to  speak  of  war  having  a  good  effect 
upon  a  nation's  procreativoness.  On  the  contrary,  the  curve 
(See  Fig.   2)    showing  the  percentage  of  children  born  in 


45_ 


4a 

35_J 


30. 


25, 


Births  per  1000  Inhabitants     War  of  1855 


Warofl87D-7l 


fiiL 


•^^ 


X 


\ 


i850  1900 

Fig.  2. 
Number  of  births  per  cent,  in  Prussia  during  the  years  1830-1910. 

Germany  from  1830  to  1910  clearly  indicates  that  the  influ- 
ence of  war  is  nothing  more  or  less  than  extremel}^  unfavorable. 
Between  1830  and  1870  the  birth-rate  slowly  rose,  then 
comes  the  slight  decrease  owing  to  the  war  of  1866  and  the 
heavy  falling  ofi:'  owing  to  the  war  of  1870,  followed  by  a 
clearly  perceptible,  but  very  transitory,  compensatory  increase. 
This  increase,  as  can  easily  be  calculated,  is  nothing  like  suf- 
ficient to  make  up  for  the  decrease.  Then  follows  a  gradual 
and  continuous  falling  off,  until  in  1914,  just  before  the  war, 
we  had  reached  figures  which  could  not  but  alarm,  and  indeed 
did  alarm,  every  one  who  attached  any  importance  to  the 


SELECTION  BY  MEANS  OF  WAR  99 

birth-rate;  so  that,  as  at  one  time  in  France,  attempts  were 
made  to  remedy  matters  by  legislative  or  administrative 
measures.^ 

Personally,  I  do  not  attach  extreme  importance  to  this  birth- 
rate question;  but,  at  all  events,  statistics  clearly  prove  that 
war  does  not  have  any  sort  or  kind  of  good  effect  upon  a 
country's  population.  That  even  during  the  short  time  that 
the  compensatory  increase  of  the  birth-rate  lasts  the  quality 
of  the  births  cannot  be  influenced  for  good  has  already  been 
proved  in  discussing  the  question  of  paternity  in  war.  This 
seems  likewise  borne  out  by  a  consideration  of  children  born 
in  war.  During  what  I  admit  was  a  cursory  investigation  I 
have  scarcely  found  a  single  person  of  eminence  who  was  pro- 
created in  war-time  or  whose  father  was  a  returned  soldier. 
At  all  events,  they  are  certainly  fewer  than  they  ought  to  be, 
considering  how  many  wars  there  have  been  and  how  many 
men  more  or  less  eminent. 

§  39. — The  Rcenforcement  of  the  Sense  of  Power 

War,  therefore,  invigorates  nations  from  a  purely  physical 
point  of  view,  just  as  do  sports  sensibly  engaged  in,  without 
taking  any  account  of  the  fact  that  millions  perish  owing  to 
excess  of  such  invigoration. 

Similarly,  with  regard  to  the  effects  of  war  on  character, 
the  enormous  upheaval  caused  by  war  certainly  does  more 
harm  than  good,  but  it  may  perhaps  happen  that  it  arouses 
a  slumbering  nation.  Take  a  watch  which  has  stopped.  If 
we  bang  it  violently  on  the  table,  it  will  probably  be  broken 
in  two,  but  sometimes  it  begins  to  go  again.  The  watch,  how- 
ever, if  it  does  go  at  all,  goes  right,  but  a  nation  whose  thirst 
for  power  has  been  aroused  by  war  does  not  know  how  to 

1  If  this  decrease  was  long  unperceived  by  the  majority  of  the  public, 
this  is  because  of  late  years  mortality  has  also  greatly  decreased;  con- 
sequently the  absolute  numbers  of  the  population  continued  to  increase 
considerably.  It  need  hardly  be  said  tliat  such  an  "increase  of  old 
people"  is  only  apparently  a  real  increase  of  population,  as  every 
statistician  admits. 


100  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

satisfy  that  thirst.  It  is  ready  to  do  something,  but  there  is 
no  one  to  direct  its  energies,  and  they  may  therefore  lead  to 
all  sorts  of  good  or  bad  results. 

A  war,  especially  one  ending  with  an  easy  victory  like  those 
of  1864,  1866,  and  1870,  wall  generally  make  a  nation  warlike, 
and  through  the  influence  of  its  baleful  martial  spirit  drive 
it  along  the  road  to  ruin.^ 

But  matters  often  turn  out  othei*wise.  Have  the  rulers  of 
the  people  never  reflected  that  serious  consequences  may  re- 
sult from  wrenching  the  hammer  from  the  workman's  hand, 
and  putting  a  sword  in  its  place?  The  working-man,  now  ac- 
customed to  use  a  weapon  that  he  once  merely  manufactured, 
is  put  in  a  position  in  which  the  political  fortunes  of  the 
country  depend  directly  upon  him.  No  longer  is  he  op- 
pressed :  he  is  fawned  upon,  and  not  in  the  street  only,  as 
witness  the  commotion  made  about  "our  heroes,"  but  also  by 
the  Government.  It  was  so  in  1813,  when  the  king  promised 
the  people  a  constitution;  it  was  so  in  1870,  when  he  really 
did  grant  them  universal  suffrage ;  it  was  so  in  1914,  when 
the  kaiser  first  recollected  the  constitutional  ordinance  which 
places  the  crown  above  all  parties ;  and  after  peace  it  will  be 
so  again. 

Moreover,  the  working-man  comes  into  closest  contact  with 
cannon,  which,  Lassalle  tells  us,  form  an  important  constituent 
part  of  the  constitution ;  and  thus  he  realizes  that  in  the  world 
to-day  might  is  the  mother  of  right.  This  might,  however, 
may  take  any  turn ;  and  there  are  not  a  few  who  hope  that 
an  after  effect  of  this  present  war  will  be  that  Germany  will 
become  stronger  because  they  believe  that  the  liberation  move- 
ment will  be  strengthened  there.  This  is  possible,  but  even 
freedom  might  be  attained  by  more  direct  means  and  with 
far  less  bloodshed. 

1  Hence  the  Bible  says,  "Scatter  thou  the  people  that  delight  in  war," 
Psalms  68,  v.  30,  and  hence  the  necessity  for  all  who  wish  Germany 
well  to  take  a  firm  stand  against  any  policy  of  annexation.  If  Ger- 
many is  to  continue  to  exist,  she  must  abandon  the  belief  that  any- 
thing caJi  be  achieved  by  force. 


SELECTION  BY  MEANS  OF  WAR  101 

3. — THE   SPECIFIC    EFFECTS   OF    WAR 

§  40. — Its  Alleged  Cruelty 

Seutimental  persons  consider  war  wrong  because  it  must 
of  necessity  be  cruel,  whereas  robust  natures,  on  the  contrary, 
persist  In  seeing  something  good  in  training  men  in  "whole- 
some brutality."  Apart,  however,  from  the  fact  that  neither 
sentimental  nor  robust  arguments  are  ever  good  argument, 
cruelty  and  justice  are  by  no  means  opposed  to  each  other, 
although  they  certainly  do  not  mean  the  same  thing. 

"When  the  wolf  eats  the  lamb  or  man  the  ox,  this  is  cruel 
to  the  ovine  and  bovine  races,  though  for  the  canines  and 
primates  natural  and  right.  But  it  has  nothing  to  do  with 
justice.  Both  mining  and  navigation  might  be  forbidden  on 
the  ground  of  their  cruelty,  just  as  the  manufacture  of  sulphur 
matches  has  been  forbidden,  and  yet  they  are  all  honest  oc- 
cupations. Needless  cruelty  is  indeed  needless,  but  necessary 
cruelties  are,  after  all,  necessary;  and  however  greatly  we 
may  revere  justice,  this  fact  remains  unaltered. 

In  Germany  alone  about  thirty-five  thousand  persons  annu- 
ally die  an  unnatural  or  violent  death,  whether  from  an  acci- 
dent while  at  work,  suicide,  or  crime.  This  makes  a  total  of 
one  and  a  half  million  dead  for  the  forty-four  years  of  peace 
immediately  preceding  the  present  war;  and  at  any  rate,  as 
yet  the  war  has  scarcely  exceeded  this  number.^  Now,  impar- 
tially considered,  war  is  not  at  all  particularly  cruel.  Statis- 
tics prove  that  in  the  long  run  death  takes  a  far  higher  toll  of 
railway  employees,  fishermen,  miners,  and  sailors  than  of  sol- 
diers even  in  the  cruellest  war.  The  only  reason  why  the 
deaths  in  war  make  a  great  impression  upon  us  is  that  tliey 
are  crowded  together  in  a  short  space  of  time.  Norman  An- 
gell  -  says,  basing  his  assertion  on  figures  which  I  admit  I 
have  not  checked,  that  as  much  suffering  and  loss  of  human 
life  has  been  caused  by  cod-fishing  alone  in  Europe  during  the 

1  These  words  were  written   in    lOl.j. — Translator. 

2  Norman  Angcil,  'The  Great  Illusion,"  1910. 


102  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

last  century  as  by  war,  and  he  even  goes  the  length  of  saj'ing 
that  such  peaceful  occupations  have  actually  been  the  cause 
of  almost  as  much  brutality. 

Our  tropical  administration  in  peace-time  necessitates  a  not 
less  heavy  toll  in  the  form  of  the  health  of  fine  men ;  and  a 
vast  deal  that  goes  on  in  Africa  or  South  America  means,  sad 
to  relate,  that  human  nature  is  being  morally  brutalized  in  a 
way  as  bad  as  anything  which  can  be  charged  to  war.  But, 
above  all,  our  present  commercial  system  being  what  it  is, 
enormously  more  human  beings  die  from  injuries  received  in 
commercial  competition  than  from  murderous  war. 

If  we  consider  war  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  whole 
human  race,  we  are  almost  tempted  to  smile  at  the  paltriness 
of  its  effects.  About  every  second  one  human  being  dies,  but 
even  this  murderous  AYorld  "War  has  hardly  succeeded  in 
greatly  raising  this  figure,  for  as  a  result  of  it  about  sixty-four 
human  beings  die  on  an  average  every  minute,  instead  of 
sixty. 

Our  unconscious  sentimentality,  in  fact,  leads  us  to  over- 
estimate the  number  of  war's  victims.  Of  course  it  might 
be  said  that  it  is  young  and  vigorous  persons  who  die  in  war, 
which  is  certainly  true ;  but  the  accident  statistics  just  quoted, 
according  to  which  thirty-five  thousand  Germans  perished 
annually  from  accidents,  prove  that  even  in  this  case  too  much 
is  made  of  war. 

This  impression  of  the  relative  unimportance  of  war  in 
regard  to  its  effect  on  the  duration  of  human  life  is  still  fur- 
ther deepened  if  we  examine  statistics  more  closely.  The  days 
of  man's  life  are  three  score  years  and  ten,  and  as  a  matter 
of  fact  we  see  that  a  great  number  of  men  in  comfortable  and 
sufficiently  remunerated  occupations,  such  as  those  of  scholars 
and  scientists,  clergy,  monarchs,  statesmen,  and  others,  do 
reach  this  age ;  yet  the  working-man  on  an  average  attains  the 
age  of  at  most  forty  years.  Of  the  inhabitants  of  Europe 
twelve  millions  die  every  year,  which  makes  more  than  1.000,- 
000,000  (a  thousand  million)   in  the  last  century.     As  these 


SELECTION  BY  MEANS  OF  WAR  103 

deaths  occurred  on  an  average  thirty  years  too  soon,  this 
means  that  in  the  last  century  about  thirty-six  thousand  mil- 
lion years  of  human  life  have  been  thus  destroyed  in  Europe 
alone. 

Now  let  us  assume  that  during  the  last  hundred  years  about 
thirty  million  human  beings  have  died  in  Europe  as  a  direct 
or  indirect  result  of  war,  and  that  on  an  average  twenty  years 
were  cut  off  from  their  lives.  This  would  give  only  rather 
more  than  five  hundred  million  years  of  life  destroyed  by  war. 

We  see,  therefore,  that  the  lives  sacrificed  to  war  amount 
to  only  one  sixtieth  part  of  those  sacrificed  on  the  industrial 
battle-field.  Yerily,  when  faced  with  these  figures,  it  cannot 
be  said  that  war  is  the  cruellest  and  sternest  form  of  struggle 
on  mother  earth.  ^Moreover,  as  a  matter  of  fact  the  lo.sses  of 
human  lives  were  always  very  quickly  made  up  again,  and 
the  Franco-Prussian  war  produced  a  scarcely  perceptible  notch 
in  the  German  population  curve.     (Cf.  the  curve  on  page  98.) 

It  is  true  that  other  wars — wars  fought  long  ago,  for  in- 
stance the  Thirty  Years'  War — have  exercised  a  far  worse 
infiuenee,  owing  to  their  indirect  results.  But  just  as  a  per- 
son may  quite  justifiably  go  to  sea  and  brave  its  dangers  in 
the  hope  of  thereby  attaining  a  life  of  greater  comfort  and 
wealth  afterward,  even  so  nations  might  be  allowed  to  face 
the  comparatively  small  risks  of  war  in  order  that  they  may 
become  more  prosperous  afterward. 

Moreover,  a  certain  amount  of  cruelty  is  necessary,  and 
therefore  also  good.  The  life  of  a  person  is  not  of  such  im- 
portance as  to  justify  any  advance  in  civilization  being  de- 
ferred out  of  regard  for  it.  Are  we  to  cease  traveling  by 
rail  because  trains  may  collide?  Or  are  we  to  abolish  motor- 
cars because  it  may  be  impossible  to  avoid  inoffensive  pass- 
ersby  sometimes  getting  under  their  wheels? 

Who  did  not  rejoice  over  the  piercing  of  the  Gothard  Tun- 
nel, although  many  workmen  lost  their  lives  over  the  work? 
Who  would  Iciment  the  construction  of  vessels  of  fifty  thou- 
sand tons  burden,  although  if  such  a  mammoth  liner  as  the 


104  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

Titanic,  for  instance,  goes  down,  thousands  of  men  find  their 
graves  in  a  single  hour?  And  would  the  conquest  of  the 
air  be  possible  without  hundreds  of  thousands  sacrificing  their 
lives  in  order  to  buy  their  experience?  Many  more  such  in- 
stances might  be  cited,  for  the  impulse  to  risk  our  lives  is 
innate  in  us,  and  thousands  tiock  to  climb  mountains,  albeit 
this  sport  is  foolhardy  and  of  no  use  in  itself. 

And  thank  God  that  it  is  so.  If  civilization  is  to  advance, 
there  must  be  men  ready  to  sacrifice  their  lives,  and  the  victims 
claimed  hy  war  would  he  no  reason  for  giving  it  up.  Were 
it  justifiable  in  itself,  there  would  be  no  reason  to  trouble 
about  mountains  of  corpses. 

§  41. — Man  as  Subject  and  Object  of  Warfare 

War  in  itself,  abstractly  considered,  is  an  anachronism,  and 
continues  to  survive  only  because  men  carry  it  on  and  prepare 
for  it.  Man's  participation  in  war  differs  from  his  partici- 
pation in  anything  else,  because  in  war  he  takes  both  an 
active  and  a  passive  part.  In  the  case  of  a  piece  of  music  a 
man  can  be  either  performer  or  hearer;  in  an  execution,  either 
executioner  or  criminal.  In  short,  in  all  cases,  even  in  legisla- 
tion, man  is  either  subject  or  object.  In  war,  however,  man 
both  shoots  and  is  shot,  and  it  is  impossible  for  one  person  to 
wage  war  without  some  one  else  doing  likewise. 

War  has  often  been  called  the  "great  leveler,"  but  never 
has  it  leveled  to  such  an  overwhelming  extent  as  during  this 
war  of  1914.  It  has,  in  fact,  made  all  human  beings  in  Ger- 
many of  the  same  stamp,  with  the  result  that  they  are  as 
like  one  another  as  two  peas.  "Go  ahead,"  "We  '11  give  it 
them,"  "We  must  win  because  we  have  deserved  to," — with 
these  and  such-like  phrases  has  every  war  been  ushered  for 
ages  past ;  and  it  is  not  surprising  that  no  one  should  be  able 
to  show  much  originality  in  composing  variations  on  so  lim- 
ited a  theme.  But  that  Sudermann  and  Richard  Dehmel, 
Ludwig  Fulda  and  Arno  Holz,  were  so  like  one  another  no 
one  would  at  one  time  have  dreamed.     There  are  no  longer 


SELECTION  BY  MEANS  OF  \YAR  105 

any  parties,  and  our  political  newspapers  differ  as  little  as 
one  egg  from  another.  This  effacement  of  individuality,  so 
that  scarcely  a  shade  of  difference  remains,  between  one  per- 
son and  another,  this  uniform  repetition  of  what  has  been 
said  a  thousand  times  already,  is  perhaps  of  all  forms  of  com- 
monplaceness  the  most  depressing. 

The  object  of  war,  in  short,  both  practical  and  intellectual, 
is  the  destruction  of  the  object  by  the  subject,  and  at  the  same 
time  the  destruction  of  the  subject  by  the  object.  Now,  this 
being  so,  as  no  one  doubts  or  even  can  doubt,  it  is  really  as- 
tonishing that  many  persons  should  so  very  frequently  ex- 
press surprise  at  its  inevitable  results.  The  fittest  symbols  of 
war  are  in  reality  two  lions  devouring  each  other,  which  can 
be  called  in  turn  subject  and  object. 

§  42. — Killing  and  Dying 

This  peculiar  twofold  effect  of  war  manifests  itself  in  an- 
other manner.  At  the  first  glance  there  seems  to  be  two 
characteristics  distinguishing  war:  we  are  determined  to  kill 
and  we  are  ready  to  die.  The  readiness  to  sacrifice  their  lives 
for  an  idea  is  considered  by  almost  all  human  beings  as  an  act 
denoting  moral  superiority,  the  Chinese  being  perhaps  the  sole 
exception.  On  the  other  hand,  readiness  to  kill  another  has 
always  been  considered  to  denote  moral  degradation.  Thus  it 
might  be  thought  that  here  is  a  case  of  superiority  and  in- 
feriority pitted  against  each  other,  and  that  it  is  to  some 
extent  left  to  the  person  to  choose  whether  he  will  bring  out 
the  good  or  the  bad  side  of  war  the  more  strongly;  indeed, 
that  it  perhaps  depends  only  upon  the  personality  of  the  indi- 
vidual soldier  vhether  war  has  a  morally  invigorating  or  a 
brutalizing  effect  upon  him. 

In  practice  this  twofold  possibility  has  never  been  lost  sight 
of,  and  even  now  we  can  read  in  almost  every  newspaper  in 
every  European  country  that  our  soldiers  to-day  are  a  ''band 
of  heroes  uplifted  by  war,"  and  those  of  the  enemy  a  ''rabble 
of  war-brutalized  soldiery."    Putting  such  thoughtless  com- 


106  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

parisons  aside,  we  might  still  think  that  there  is  something 
genuinely  good  in  war.  We  must  put  all  such  considerations 
from  us,  however,  for  the  one  thing  characteristic  of  war  is 
desire  to  kill.  Only  in  war  may  we  kill  our  fellow-mortals 
unpunished,  for  the  killing  of  a  man  in  a  duel,  which  comes 
within  much  the  same  category,  is  now  universally,  albeit 
mildly,  punished.  Man  may  sacrifice  himself,  however,  for 
the  utmost  possible  diversity  of  objects.  Christ  sacrificed  him- 
self for  mankind,  Lucretia  herself  for  her  honor,  Winkelried 
himself  for  the  deliverance  of  his  country,  Thekla  herself  for 
love's  sake:  doctors  sacrifice  themselves  for  the  sake  of  in- 
vestigating the  plague,  mothers  for  their  children,  children  for 
their  parents,  and  "noble  characters"  in  general  for  their 
fellow-men.  In  short,  every  one  in  his  life  has  abundant  op- 
portunity of  self-sacrifice,  and  there  is  no  need  for  him  to 
select  just  that  particular  method  which  necessitates  his  first 
endeavoring  to  sacrifice  as  many  others  as  possible. 

Hence  we  ought  not  to  consider,  as  many  do,  that  the  sacri- 
fice of  life  in  war  is  a  reason  for  retaining  war,  for  there  is  no 
lack  of  other  occupations  in  which  life  may  be  sacrificed  not 
equally  horribly,  but  more  wisely,  for  instance,  as  a  pioneer 
of  new  discoveries,  in  the  fight  against  disease  or  for  lessening 
danger  of  fire  or  loss  of  life  at  sea,  in  producing  articles  of 
prime  necessity,  on  the  stormy  ocean,  or  deep  in  the  bowels 
of  the  earth.  Or  is  it  perhaps  one  sort  of  heroism  when  an 
officer,  bearing  aloft  his  country's  flag,  leads  his  regiment 
onward  under  a  hail  of  bullets,  and  another  sort  when  Petten- 
kofer  intentionally  swallows  a  cholera  bacillus?  And  if,  even 
now,  there  are  not  many  Pettenkofers,  then  an  attempt  should 
be  made  to  induce  more  to  come  forward — more  Pettenkofers 
and  fewer  soldiers.  The  sum  total  of  heroism  would  remain 
the  same,  but  the  sum  total  of  human  happiness  on  earth  would 
be  increased. 

No,  it  is  not  dying  which  is  the  characteristic  act  distinctive 
of  war,  but  killing,  for  war  is  the  one  occasion  when  twentieth- 
century  man  thinks  himself  justified  in  killing  his  fellow-man. 


SELECTION  BY  MEANS  OF  WAR  107 

But  killing  is  brutalizing,  even  for  those  men,  like  the  hang- 
man, who  kill  in  accordance  with  legally  prescribed  forms. 
Moreover,  the  hangman's  calling  used  naturally  to  be  looked 
upon  as  ignominious,  and  even  now  he  has  to  live,  in  self-im- 
posed anonymity,  a  somewhat  solitary  existence.  I  do  not 
know  a  single  hangman,  and  although  I  consider  them  thor- 
oughly honorable  men,  I  should  not  wish  to  know  one. 

Even  the  killing  of  animals  has  a  brutalizing  effect,  and 
popular  opinion  used  to  put  the  knacker  on  a  level  with  the 
hangman.  Doubtless  we  feel,  quite  properly,  that  we  must 
draw  a  distinction  between  the  hangman  and  the  soldier,  in 
whose  case  the  element  of  self-sacrifice  atones  for  something. 
But  as  self-sacrifice  is  nowise  characteristic  of  war,  its  spe- 
cific effect  is,  after  all,  only  to  brutalize  the  human  race. 

§  43. — Bloodthirstiness 

Love  of  killing  seems  to  be  positively  in  man's  blood.  An 
American  writer,  whose  name  I  forget,  says  that  we  are  not 
descended  from  the  "noble  beasts  of  prey,"  but  from  cow- 
ardly vegetable-feeders  (graminiverous  animals),  which,  being 
too  weak  to  kill  one  another,  rage  at  one  another  owing  to  a 
perverted  instinct.  In  my  opinion  this  is  a  wrong  point  of 
view,  first,  because  most  vegetable-feeders  never  eat  one  an- 
other, and,  secondly,  because  it  is  easier  for  an  animal  to 
fight  one  of  a  different  species  than  one  of  its  own. 

But  what  is  remarkable  about  this  innate  human  love  of 
murder  is  that  it  reaches  such  a  pitch  that  man  is  one  of  the 
few  creatures  that  actually  devour  their  own  kind.^  True,  it 
is  frequently  noticed  that  among  animals  parents  eat  their 
offspring  (pius,  for  instance,  do  so),  but  that  it  seldom  hap- 
pens that  full-grown  animals  eat  one  another.  At  all  events, 
cannibalism  is  in  this  sense  a  purely  human  characteristic 

1  Acoorcling  to  tlie  careful  caloulationa  of  Richard  Andrees,  in  "Die 
Aiithropopha<;ie":  Leipsic,  1S87,  tlie  number  of  cannibals  in  particular 
about  the  year  1.S70  still  numbered  nearly  two  million;  that  is,  more 
than  one  per  thousand  of  mankind. 


108  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

(that  is,  a  characteristic  which  was  developed  in  a  compara. 
tively  recent  period),  because  in  the  dwellings  of  the  most 
ancient  human  beings  charred  and  split  bones  of  all  kinds  of 
beasts  of  prey  have  been  found,  but  never  human  bones  which 
had  been  so  treated.  Then  came  a  period,  however,  when  al- 
most all  nations  were  cannibals,  and  all  national  epics  contain 
unmistakable  reminiscences  of  this  cannibalism.  This  is  clear 
from  the  legends  of  the  Pelopidae,  of  Gaia  and  Polyphemus, 
while  even  in  the  Bible  there  are  indications  of  cannibalism, 
and  as  children  we  used  innocently  to  read  about  it  in  the 
story  of  the  juniper-tree. 

In  all  these  legends  it  is  parents  that  eat  their  offspring, 
which  points  to  the  fact  that  this  was  the  most  primitive  form 
of  cannibalism,  the  biological  significance  of  which  was  ob- 
viously to  do  away  as  speedily  as  possible  with  weakly  new- 
born infants  in  order  to  make  room  for  healthy  offspring. 
Similar  reasons  account  for  the  exposure  of  children,  which 
is  met  with  in  the  case  of  even  such  peoples  as  the  Spartans 
and  Chinese,  in  some  respects  very  vigorous.  There  were  fre- 
quently practical  reasons  for  this  also,  since  children  are  often 
a  great  burden,  particularly  to  nomadic  peoples.  That  moth- 
ers kill  new-born  infants  to  prevent  their  figures  being  spoiled 
by  suckling  them,  as  is  the  case  in  the  Solomon  Isles,  probably 
seldom  happens. 

But  all  this  is  child  murder.  In  reality  nowadays  almost 
everywhere  among  primitive  peoples  old  and  superfiuous  folk 
or  captured  enemies  are  killed  or  eaten,  as  the  case  may  be. 
Now,  this  can  scarcely  have  been  a  primitive  instinct,  for  the 
fact  that  the  sick  and  feeble  are  not  simply  left  behind  in 
some  thicket,  but  actually  killed,  proves  that  a  certain  sense 
of  responsibility  is  felt  toward  them.  Only  creatures  com- 
paratively highly  developed  from  the  social  point  of  view, 
such  as  storks,  do  anything  of  this  sort,  or  at  any  rate  they 
are  said  to  do  it.  Whether  those  killed  were  buried  or  de- 
voured probably  depended  chiefly  on  practical  considerations 
of  food-supply,  for  in  countries  with  few  wild  animals  this  is 


SELECTION  BY  MEANS  OF  WAR  100 

the  most  convenient  way  of  procuring  meat.  This  can  be 
proved  to  explain  the  former  cannibalism  of  the  New  Zealand 
Maori,  and  perhaps  also  of  the  iiidustrions  Aztecs. 

Thus  originally  delight  in  killing  others  had,  beyond  doubt, 
a  purpose  and  rational  cause.  It  was  not  long,  however,  be- 
fore some  admixture  of  superstition  appeared.  The  belief 
arose  that  by  incorporating  the  bodily  substance  of  good  an- 
cestors or  valiant  foes  in  one's  own  body,  their  good  qualities 
were  also  acquired;  just  as  for  a  similar  reason  the  Burmese, 
Indians,  Romans,  Serbians,  and  ancient  Teutons,  and  after- 
ward during  the  whole  of  the  Middle  Ages  almost  all  European 
nations,  used  to  wall  up  a  living  being  in  a  newly  built  build- 
ing in  order  that  his  soul  might  become  its  guardian  spirit. 
The  existence  of  this  mystical  tendency  in  some  living  canni- 
bals can  be  actually  proved. 

Superstition  of  this  kind,  of  course,  need  not  have  been  the 
original  motive,  but  on  the  other  hand  dogmatic  religious  tra- 
ditions were  undoubtedly  the  cause  of  murderous  proclivities 
having  been  handed  down  even  into  times  in  which  there  was 
no  longer  any  object  in  them.  True,  modern  charges  of  kill- 
ing children  out  of  religious  mania,  charges  formerly  made 
against  the  Knights  Templars  and  now  mostly  against  the 
Jews,  are  unfounded.  Philippe  le  Bel  burned  more  than  one 
hundred  Templars  for  this  cause,  but  it  would  seem  that  de- 
sire to  get  possession  of  the  enormous  wealth  of  their  order 
was  his  chief  motive  in  bringing  the  accusation. 

It  is  impossible  not  to  be  struck  with  the  fact  that  canni- 
balism and  human  sacritice  in  general  are  very  frequently 
connected  with  religious  ceremonies.  It  is  enough  to  point 
out  ^  that  even  Christianity,  in  the  sacrament  of  the  Lord's 
Supper,  shows  traces  of  cannibalism,  and  that  consequently 
the  derisive  appellation  of  " mangeurs  du  bon  Dieu"  is  not 
wholly  without  justification.^ 

In  all  religions,  even  in  that  of  the  Old  Testament,  there 

1  For  furtlipr  details  see  Schurtz's  "Urgeschichte  der  Kultur."  (An- 
cient Historj'  of  Civilization'')  :   l^eipsio,   1900. 


110  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

are  references  to  hnman  sacrifice,  though  in  the  Christian  era 
this  was  no  longer  permitted.  Even  here,  however,  the  mur- 
derous impulse  was  stronger  than  doctrinal  principles,  and 
more  human  beings  than  ever  were  slain  on  pretext  of  having 
been  tried  and  condemned  as  heretics  and  witches.^ 

Human  sacrifice,  however,  has  occurred  in  parts  of  the  world 
and  at  all  times,  even  in  the  case  of  the  more  tolerant  religions. 
Chinese  and  Hindus,  Phenicians  and  Carthaginians,  Jews  and 
Egyptians,  Greeks  and  Eomans,  Kelts,  Teutons,  and  Slavs, 
negroes.  North  American  Indians,  and  South  Sea  Islanders, 
all  used  to  sacrifice  human  beings  or  still  do  so. 

Nowhere  was  this  abomination  as  prevalent  as  in  Mexico, 
where  from  twenty  thousand  to  fifty  thousand  persons  used 
to  be  sacrificed  annually  on  a  special  day  set  apart  for  the 
purpose,  while  in  the  year  1486  fully  one  hundred  thousand 
human  beings  were  sacrificed  at  once.  The  breast  of  the 
wretched  victim  was  rapidly  ripped  open  with  well-sharpened 
obsidian  knives,  the  heart  firmly  seized  and  torn  out  and 
thrown,  still  smoking,  into  the  maw  of  an  idol  near  by.  This 
hideous  custom  of  sacrifice,  however,  was  followed  not  by  the 
Aztecs  alone,  but  by  the  in  some  respects  highly  civilized 
Peruvian  Incas,  and  also  by  all  the  other  primitive  American 
races.  Even  now  in  the  African  Kingdom  of  Dahomey  hun- 
dreds of  negro  slaves  are  annually  slain  for  sacrificial  pur- 
poses.^ Stress  must  be  laid  upon  these  religious  butcheries 
just  because  they  perhaps  more  than  anything  else  show  how 
deep-seated  in  man  is  bloodthirstiness. 

But  in  course  of  time  man  was  deprived  of  one  chance 
after  another  of  gratifying  his  love  of  blood,  and  in  the 
eighteenth  century  virtually  all  legitimate  methods  of  human 
slaughter  had  fallen  into  desuetude.     True,  the  poor  folk  con- 

1  According  to  the  estimate  of  Professor  Tliomasius  of  Halle,  the 
number  of  witches  and  heretics  burned  by  ecclesiastical  and  civil  courts 
reached  the  almost  incredible  total  of  al)out  nine  millions. 

2  "Kulturwandel  und  Volkerverkehr"  ("Changes  in  Civilization  and 
Racial  Intercourse")  by  Hermann  Brunnhofer.  VVilhelm  Friedrich: 
Leipsic,  1874. 


SELECTION  BY  MEANS  OF  WAR  111 

tinued  to  die  for  the  nobles,  but  they  died  silentlj'  and  no 
longer  in  the  arena.  Only  a  few  traces  of  the  official  exhibi- 
tions of  blood  still  lingered  on.  In  Spain  there  were  still 
bull-fights;  English  sailors  did  not  give  up  boxing,  nor  Ger- 
man students  duelling;  in  Russia  there  were  various  sects, 
such  £is  the  Soschigateti,  and  the  sect  of  the  Spassow  Sogolassie, 
who  used  to  kill  themselves  or  their  children ;  but  generally 
speaking  the  French  Revolution  had  made  it  impossible  in 
Europe  for  the  bloodthirsty  instincts  so  deepl}^  ingrained  in 
human  nature  to  find  satisfaction.  Characteristically  enough, 
the  French  Revolution  was  attested  by  a  great  and  unneces- 
sary slaughter  of  human  beings. 

War  alone  remained,  and  all  these  primeval  impulses  were 
concentrated  upon  it.  What  wonder,  therefore,  that  the  na- 
tional genius  should  have  created  the  so-called  national  army, 
and  that  delight  in  war,  the  sole  surviving  form  of  blood- 
thirstiness,  should  have  aasumed  gigantic  proportions.  And 
now  we  have  a  Richard  Dehmel  rejoicing  over  the  death  of  as 
many  "German  heretics  (by  which  he  means  men  who  refuse 
to  admit  German  supremacy)  as  possible  ''in  majorem  gloriam 
patricE,"  and  doing  so,  moreover,  with  the  same  sort  of  pious 
resignation  wherewith  an  Innocent  III  used  to  rejoice  that 
as  many  religious  heretics  as  possible  should  be  burned  "m 
majorem  (jloriam  Del!" 

§  U.—The  Bnitalizing  Effects  of  War 

War,  which  is  fought  out  with  cold  steel,  is,  after  all,  a 
bloody  business,  and  the  effect  of  blood  must  not  be  left  out 
of  account.  The  saying  about  a  "lion  which  has  once  tasted 
blood"  is  not  a  mere  phrase,  and  it  is  a  principle  deeply  in- 
grained in  human  nature  that  everything  which  we  do  a 
second  time  comes  easier  than  the  first  time,  *'Ce  n'est  que  le 
premier  pas  qui  coitte"  and  " L'appetit  vient  en  mangeant/' 
This,  indeed,  is  the  foundation  of  all  possibility  of  evolution, 
for  ever}'thing  we  learn  is  learned  by  practice.  But  it  is 
possible  to  learn  evil  as  easily,  perhaps  even  more  easily,  than 


112  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

good;  and  there  is  uothiug  good  in  considering  man's  life  as 
of  no  account,  for  in  the  end  all  civilization  is  based  on  respect 
for  life. 

In  war,  however,  life  loses  in  value.  In  battle  regiments  of 
a  man's  fellow-men  are  sacriticed,  and  civilians  and  soldiers 
condemned  to  death  by  court  martial  for  offenses  which  other- 
wise would  scarcely  have  been  punished.  And  as  for  the  lives 
of  enemies,  an  officer  for  whom  as  a  man  I  had  great  respect 
told  me,  with  horror  at  the  recollection,  that  he  once  threat- 
ened his  landlord  that  he  would  shoot  him  if  a  lost  purse  could 
not  be  found.  Human  beings — hostages,  for  instance — of 
whpse  individual  innocence  their  executioners  must  be  con- 
vinced are  shot  in  cold  blood ;  and  when  at  the  very  outset  of 
the  war  a  Prassian  officer  preferred  suicide  to  carrying  out  an 
Older  of  this  kind,  his  fellow-officers  spoke  of  this  self-sacrifice 
for  conscience'  sake  as  hypersensitive  weakness. 

Another  instance  of  indifference  is  that  we  are  not  offended 
wiien  expressions  generally  used  of  animals  only  are  applied 
to  human  beings.  Even  our  official  reports  speak  of  twenty 
of  the  enemy  having  been  "shot  down,"  and  trenches  are 
"cleansed  of  the  enemy,"  just  as  an  old  coat  used  to  be 
cleansed  of  filth  or  vermin. 

1  agree  with  our  sticklers  for  the  purity  of  the  German  lan- 
guage, but  even  more  important  than  attacking  French  words 
seems  to  me  the  extermination  of  brutal  expressions.  Speech 
is  as  a  mirror  reflecting  the  soul  of  a  people.  Let  us  there- 
fore be  on  our  guard,  and  not  add  to  this  list,  which  might  be 
very  much  lengthened.  Perhaps  these  expressions  will  disap- 
pear again  of  themselves.  War,  indeed,  must  have  a  brutal- 
izing effect,  because  it  forces  man  to  make  the  performance 
of  brutal  actions  his  business,  a  fact  which  is  gradually  be- 
ginning  to  be  perceived.  For  instance,  W.  von  Hollander,' 
a  soldier  who  took  part  in  the  war  for  a  year  and  a  half, 
writes  as  follows: 

1  "Der  Kreig  ala  Zustand"  ("War  as  a  State")  by  W  von  Hollander, 
in  the  "Berliner  Tageblatt,"  Is'o    10,  of  Jan   tj,  191G 


SELECTION  BY  MEANS  OF  WAR  113 

Warfare  has  become  for  us  both  counti'y  and  calling.  The  army 
is  a  people  apart;  and  the  language  of  war  is  a  language  incompre- 
hensible to  any  outsider,  however  excellent  a  linguist.  The  excep- 
tional has  become  the  habitual,  and  what  used  to  be  called  insanity 
or  madness  has  in  process  become  in  the  language  of  war  not  merely 
a  fact,  but  a  matter  of  course. 

No  one  who  has  lived  through  all  of  the  five  hundred  days  of  war 
without  a  break  has  been  struck  by  this  gradual  transition  from  ex- 
cessive tension  to  passivity.  He  has  been  aware  merely  of  a  sense 
of  numbness  and  resignation,  of  indifference,  utter  defiance,  in  short 
of  every  physical  sensation  being  accentuated ;  and  only  now,  when 
almost  every  one  not  sent  home  wounded  has  got  leave, —  leave,  the 
official  recognition  of  a  state  of  war  prevailing, —  only  now  can  the 
man  who  has  been  taking  jiart  in  the  war,  over  whom  the  days, 
hours,  and  seasons  stole  undesired  and  uncounted,  realize  that  a  bar- 
rier has  arisen  between  the  past  and  ourselves,  between  Germany 
and  the  land  of  war.^ 

This  wresting  of  a  man  from  his  home  surrouudiiigs  iu  the 
way  here  described  is  the  worst  thing  of  all:  it  is  treason 
against  the  holy  spirit  of  the  German  nation,  whieh  is  worse, 
more  unpardonable,  aud  more  inexpiable  than  infidelity  to  the 
flag. 

This  general  truth  outweighs  in  importance  any  number  of 
individual  instances.  We  may  eousider  Kalisz  and  Louvain 
and  everything  which  has  happened  in  real  or  alleged  franc- 
tireiir  warfare  as  justified  by  existing  necessities,  but  the  de- 
cisive fact  is  this,  that  war  confronts  human  beings  with  situa- 
tions in  which  they  must  act  inhumanly.  This  is  the  inevit- 
able result. 

As  an  example  of  such  a  situation,  the  refusal  of  quarter 
may  be  mentioned,  it  is  an  absolute  fact  that  as  long  ago 
as  the  Boxer  Kisiiig  the  password  was  officially  issued,  "No 
quarter."  In  the  present  war  this,  in  fact,  was  referred  to  by 
Prince  Rupprecht  in  a  famous  order  of  the  day ;  and  it  is 

^  Note  how  Hollander  bears  out  what  lias  heen  already  said  about  war 
bt^ginning  to  exert  its  mental  and  moral  efl'ecta  just  when  a  man  re- 
turns home. 


114  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

now  so  generally  known  that  Professor  Jastrow/  for  ex- 
ample, concludes  that  the  reason  why  the  Germans  did  not 
make  more  prisoners  was  that  "our  men  do  not  like  making 
Englishmen  prisoners. ' ' 

Even  though  it  be  urged  that  "no  quarter"  is  a  painful 
and  unavoidable  necessity,  this  nowise  alters  the  fact  that 
such  necessity  is  brutalizing.  It  might  indeed  be  sophistically 
argued  that  it  is  permissible  to  kill  an  enemy  in  battle  be- 
cause he  voluntarily  presents  himself,  and  thus  he  is  only 
receiving  the  treatment  he  perhaps,  after  all,  desires.  Never- 
theless, in  the  refusal  of  quarter  even  this  apparent  justifica- 
tion vanishes,  for  if  any  one  asks  for  parole,  he  gives  it 
plainly  to  be  understood  that  in  so  doing  no  one  has  any 
longer  a  right  to  kill  him  and  then  say  that  this  was  done  with 
his  tacit  consent.  The  refusal  of  quarter,  therefore,  whatever 
military  justification  there  may  appear  to  he  for  it,  is  heyond 
all  doubt  in  principle  the  most  serious  of  all  crimes  against 
human  dignity. 

This  disregard  for  human  life,  however,  is  only  one  bad 
aspect  of  war,  albeit  the  worst.  The  conception  of  property 
is  likewise  abolished.  A  friend  of  mine,  a  thoroughly  re- 
spectable person,  who  used  never  to  keep  so  much  as  a  book 
which  was  not  his,  ended  one  of  his  letters  by  saying  that  "he 
must  stop  now,  for  he  had  to  go  commandeering,  which  used 
commonly  to  he  called  stealing  in  Germany."  It  is  just  his 
innocent  way  of  expressing  what  in  soldiers'  slang  is  gen- 
erally "provisioning,"  which  shows  that  the  writer  had  lost 
all  consciousness  that  such  actions  might  in  certain  circum- 
stances be  wrong. 

Even  the  old  German  poet  Friedrich  von  Logan  -  says  of  a 
soldier  in  the  Thirty  Years'  War: 

1  "Eine  Lehre  aiis  der  Zahl  unserer  Gefangenen"  ("Lessons  to  be 
Drawn  from  the  Nurnljer  of  our  Prisoners")  hy  Professor  .1  Jaslrow. 
"Vossisehe  Zeitung,"  No.  308,  of  June  P.),  1915. 

-Logan,  '•Sinnegediclite,"  ("Poems  of  the  Senses"),  quoted  in  Les- 
sing's  essav  on  Lo^au. 


SELECTION  BY  MEANS  OF  WAR  115 

Keinem  bat  er  was  gestohlen, 
Denn  er  nabm  es  unverhoblen, 
Was  er  von  der  Strasse  klaubet, 
1st  gefunden,  nicbt  geraubet. 

(Rougbly:  "He  stole  nothing  from  any  one:  be  just  simply  took 
it.     Wbat  be  picked  up  in  tbe  street  was  found,  not  robbed.") 

An  officer  euligbtened  me  as  to  tbe  teebnicalities  of  "pro- 
visioiiing-. ' '  "You  go  into  a  shop  and  ask  the  price/'  he  said, 
"at  the  same  time,  for  the  sake  of  clearness,  pointing  with 
your  revolver  at  the  object  you  want  to  buy  or  at  the  seller. 
'A  penny  for  that?'  you  say,  and  everything  is  honorably  paid 
for.'^ 

Enough  of  this,  however.  The  wrong  is  much  less  in  the 
action  itself  than  in  the  fact  that  all  this  is  considered  neces- 
sarily part  and  parcel  of  a  "lively,  merry  war."  Once  more 
to  quote  old  Logau,  who  has  hit  the  right  nail  on  the  head : 

"Huren,  Saufen,  Spielen,  Flueben 
Heisst  dem  Mut  Erfribchung  sucben." 

(Rougbly:  "Wboring.  drinking,  gaming,  cursing — tbat 's  wbat  is 
called  bucking  up  a  man's  courage.") 

Every  masterful  impulse  must  perforce  tend  toward  tyranny 
and  brutalization,  whenever  the  power  is  in  the  hands  not  of  a 
muster,  but  of  a  slave.  And  the  great  majority  of  mankind 
are,  after  all,  not  masters. 

4. — The  Universal  Change  of  Attitude 
§  45. — rhe  Enemy's  Motives 

"Side  by  side  with  the  war  on  the  battle-field  there  raged 
in  Europe  a  war  of  words,  or,  more  correctly,  a  pen-and-ink 
war.  This  war  is  being  carried  on  by  people  who  have  man- 
aged to  insure  the  safety  of  their  own  skins  and  property. 
True,  the  newspaper  scribe  does  nothing  but  toss  inoffensive 
piles  of  paper  at  the  printer's  devil;  but  on  this  long-suffering 


116  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

paper  he  blackguards  his  adversary,  derides  him,  and  does 
his  best  to  put  him  in  a  contemptible  light."  ^ 

In  this  he  succeeds  only  too  well,  and  the  newspapers  of 
1914-15  ^  have  assuredly  poisoned  more  harmless  civilian 
souls  with  hatred  for  all  time  than  the  war  itself  has  done. 
In  itself  this  is  not  surprising,  for  as  even  Jean-Paul  ^  said, 
"in  the  longest  peace  men  do  not  say  so  many  false  and  fool- 
ish things  as  in  the  shortest  war"';  but  it  is  none  the  less 
regrettable,  because  the  ab^^ss  created  between  the  feelings  of 
the  different  nations  remains.  Men  die,  and  others  take  their 
places.  The  old  cathedrals,  destroyed  by  shells,  cannot,  it  is 
true,  be  rebuilt,  though  they  can  be  restored.  But  as  for  the 
outrages  perpetrated  upon  the  soul  of  the  nation,  they  will 
be  part  of  the  heritage  of  posterity,  and  all  the  more  so  be- 
cause of  late  hatred  of  foreigners  has  been  preached  even  in 
schools.  The  ecclesiastical  and  educational  department  of  his 
Majesty  the  Kaiser's  Government  at  Frankfort-on-the-Oder 
issued  a  circular  appealing  directly  to  the  school  inspectors 
under  it  "not  to  tolerate  any  efforts  to  prepare  the  way 
for  future  conciliation  between  civilized  nations."  What  is 
aimed  at  is  clearly  a  country  shut  in  not  merely  commercially, 
but  also  intellectually. 

At  all  events,  the  press  has  left  no  stone  unturned  in  order 
to  disseminate  hatred  and  thirst  for  vengeance,  all  which  is 
bad  for  Germany  and  her  aspirations  to  become  the  heart  of 
the  world,  which  might  perhaps  come  to  pass;  but  the  heart 
of  the  world  must  be  able  to  love. 

The  extraordinary  thing  was  that  to  simply  no  one  did 
it  occur,  obvious  as  this  is :  that  our  enemies  see  the  world  in 
a  different  light  from  ourselves ;  that  from  their  point  of  view 
there  is  as  much  justification  for  Panslavism  and  the  British 

1  Quoted  from  "Danzers  Arineezeitung." 

-'  Owing  to  the  severity  of  the  German  censorship,  which  exceeded 
anything  in  any  previous  war,  the  decent  papers  could  scarcely  do  any- 
thing, at  any  rate  could  not  make  their  influence  felt. 

3  "Friedspredigt  an  Deutschland"  ("A  Peace  Sermon  to  Germany") 
by  Jean-Paul  Richter:  Heidelberg,  1808,  p.  54. 


SELECTION  BY  MEANS  OF  WAR  117 

Empire  as  for  the  Uermaiis  and  their  demand  for  a  place  in 
the  sun ;  that  for  France  the  reconquest  of  her  lost  provinces 
and  revanche  are  national  problems,  just  as  the  reincorpora- 
tion of  Alsace  once  was  for  Germany,  that  Belgium  might 
fight  against  Germany,  and  Serbia  and  Montenegro  against 
Austria,  with  the  same  sacred  zeal  for  their  country  as  the 
Tyrolese  or  Liitzow  's  Black  Troops  once  did ;  and  finally  that 
the  Italians'  greater  sympathy  for  the  French,  who  are  related 
to  them  by  blood,  simply  means  that  here  national  ideas  have 
won  a  decisive  victory  over  medieval  dynastic  diplomatic  arts. 
Or  is  it  possible  that  the  Germans  were  really  already  so 
greatly  intoxicated  by  their  own  superiority  as  to  deny  other 
nations  any  right  to  an  independent  nationality? 

Thus  biassed  opinions  arose  concerning  our  enemies'  reasons 
for  having  entered  the  war.  Indeed,  it  is  not  to  be  wondered 
at  if  the  great  mass  of  people  throughout  Germany  accepted 
these  opinions,  and  they  can  hardly  be  blamed  for  having 
done  so,  since  they  were  only  repeating  the  views  of  those  they 
were  accustomed  to  regard  in  childlike  trust  as  their  leaders. 

Now,  England  was  bound  to  enter  the  war,  legally  bound, 
by  her  solemn  pledge  of  1839  and  morally  bound  by  the  fa- 
miliar terms  of  the  Entente;  yet  it  was  said  of  her  that,  as 
Hermann  Bahr,  a  German  journalist,  put  it,  she  was  making 
war  only  "because  selfishness  and  mercenary  instincts  are 
stronger  than  ties  of  blood  and  sense  of  what  is  right  and 
proper.'"*  As  long  ago  as  September  13,  1870,  France, 
through  the  mouthpiece  of  Ernest  Kenan,  had  announced  her 
intention  of  waging  a  war  of  revenge,  with  Russia  and  Eng- 
land as  her  allies.  Yet  no  one  believed  she  had  any  patri- 
otic feelings,  but  every  one  said  the  war  had  been  hatched  by 
a  gang  of  unscrupulous  politicians. 

Again,  nobody  believed  that  the  Russians  meant  to  defend 
Serbia,  and  even  such  obvious  reasons  for  war  as  Panslavism 

1  Cf.  also  tlie  speeili  delivered  by  Professor  Karl  l^atbgens  in  Ham- 
burp.  In  bis  opinion  tbe  only  real  reason  for  llie  war  was  "England  a 
reprebenbible  policy,  wbicli  aimed  at  capturing  German  trade." 


118  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

and  desire  for  expansion  toward  the  sea  were  simply  pooh- 
poohed.  It  was  thought  that  the  Russian  people,  without 
knowing  why,  had  been  driven  into  the  war  bj'  the  grand  ducal 
party  only;  in  short,  led  like  "a  lamb  to  the  slaughter." 

Impartially  considered,  the  behavior  of  small  states  such 
as  Serbia  and  Belgium  was  admirable,  but  the  abuse  heaped 
on  both  of  them  was  indescribable.  Scarcely  any  one  would 
so  much  as  mention  the  fact  that  in  Italy,  especially  since  the 
Berlin  Congress,  the  Irredenta  had  become  a  power  in  the 
land;  but  every  one  kept  on  harping  on  the  small,  but  noisy, 
and,  it  was  insinuated,  even  venal,  minority,  representing  the 
whole  war  as  having  been  brought  about  by  the  influence  of 
England's  gold.^ 

Similarly  with  regard  to  neutrals,  whose  sympathies  are 
not  even  gladly  and  gratefully  accepted  as  a  valuable  offer- 
ing, but  are  peremptorily  demanded  as  a  moral  right.  For  a 
neutral  to  be  hostile  to  us  seems  to  us  neither  more  nor  less 
than  immoral.  Thus  the  "Kolnische  Zeitung"-  for  instance, 
infers  from  the  phrase  so  often  heard  in  Belgium  even  before 
the  war,  ^' nos  sympathies  sont  vers  la  France,"  that  "in  gen- 
eral the  Belgians  have  a  strange  conception  of  the  word  neu- 
trality." Even  about  America  and  the  Balkan  States  we 
have  very  often  read  that  their  sympathies  for  the  AYesteru 
powers  are  foolish  and  criminal,  and  really  positive  treach- 
ery to — well,  to  what? 

This  absolute  lack  of  comprehension  of  our  enemies'  motives 
ought  to  be  all  the  more  regretted  by  a  German  because  the 
power  of  just  appreciation  was  once  the  national  virtue  by 
which  he  set  chief  store. 

1  When  Dr.  Nicolai  wrote  this  chapter  Prince  Lichnowsky's  revela- 
tions had,  of  course,  not  been  published,  nor  is  it  piobable  tliat  he  icuevv 
anything  of  the  Journal  of  Dr  Muehlon,  formerly  one  of  the  direetoa 
of  Krupp's  works.  Both  these  undoubtedly  Jiistorical  publications, 
however,  entirely  hear  him  out — Translator 

-  "Belgiens  Neutralitat"  in  the  'Kolnische  Zeitung"  of  August  26, 
1914,  JSo.  959. 


SELECTION  BY  MEANS  OF  WAR  119 

§  46. — Defective  Sense  of  Responsibility 

We,  on  the  other  hand,  expect  neutral  and  even  enemy  for- 
eign countries  to  understand  and  rightly  appraise  our  motives, 
although  some  of  them  are  even  now  by  no  means  obvious. 
For  instance,  we  expect  them  to  see  that  a  military  exemption 
which  brought  in  thousands  of  millions  was  not  a  threat  of 
war;  that  the  invasion  of  Luxemburg  and  Belgium  was  a  ne- 
cessity, and  so  on  and  so  on. 

Does  any  one  really  believe  that  our  alliance  with  Turkey 
is  everywhere  approved?  Think  of  Graf  Platen.^  When  the 
Venetian  Doge  Leonardo  Loredano  remarked:  "We  do  not 
want  to  owe  our  victory  to  the  Turks'  fists,"  he  replied: 
"Certainly  a  splendid  policy  for  the  Venetians,  and  one  which 
ought  to  be  held  up  to  the  Germans  of  1813  as  a  model,"  a 
reply  that  now  sounds  almost  prophetic. 

Equally  one-sided  are  the  attempts  to  divest  ourselves  of 
the  responsibility  for  the  war,  and  saddle  other  nations  there- 
with. It  is,  after  all,  only  natural  that  no  one  should  admit 
having  begun ;  but  it  is  nevertheless  a  fact  that  of  twenty-six 
' '  sovereign ' '  states  in  Europe  sixteen  ^  are  now  at  war  or  hope- 
lessly implicated  in  the  war.  That  is,  of  the  450  million  nomi- 
nal Europeans,  3f)0  millions,  or  eighty-seven  per  cent.,  are 
actually  at  war,  and  only  the  very  inconsiderable  remainder 
have  their  armies  "peacefully  mobilized."  And  not  a  soul 
will  accept  the  slightest  responsibility  for  all  these  millions 
being  thus  up  in  arms  against  one  another;  and  furthermore, 
as  proof  of  their  innocence,  every  one  continues  inciting  others 
to  war. 

The  attempt  to  represent  the  adversary  as  solely  responsible 
for  the  war  is,  impartially  considered,  an  incitement.     The 

1  "Die  Liga  von  Cambray,"  by  August  Count  von  Hallermund-Platen 
18.30,  Note  8.  (Count  von  Platen,  1T06-1S35,  German  poet,  is  now 
chiefly  remembered  by  his  lyric  poetry.) 

2  Belgium,  Bulgaria,  Germany,  England,  France,  Greece,  Italy,  Lux- 
emburg, Monaco,  Montenegro.  Austria,  Portugal,  Pussia,  Serbia,  Tur- 
key, and  Hungary;  and  when  this  book  appears,  who  can  tell  how  many 
more  there  may  not  be? 


120  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

charge  of  "having  begun"  was  leveled  fairly  indiscriminately 
at  any  and  every  adversary,  although,  as  can  be  psychologically 
explained,  the  latest  adversary  was  generally  stated  to  be  the 
Avorst;  and  it  was  perhaps  only  England's  ill  luck  that  it  was 
a  comparatively  long  while  before  any  one  else  declared  war 
after  she  did.  A  delightful  instance  of  how  dogs  always  bite 
the  last  man  was  afforded  by  that  excellent  Austrian  writer. 
Baron  Leopold  von  Chlumecky,^  who,  ten  months  after  the  out- 
break of  war,  but  precisely  ten  days  after  Italy's  declaration 
of  war,  discovered  that  "Italy  is  responsible  for  the  World 
AVar." 

Now,  it  might  certainly  be  said  that  words  do  not  matter 
so  much,  and  that  if  one  nation  insists  on  considering  itself 
altogether  better,  more  righteous,  and  less  responsible  for  a 
war  than  another  nation,  this  does  not  do  very  much  harm. 
The  harm,  however,  consists  in  the  fact  that  a  nation  which 
denies  its  share  in  the  responsibility  for  the  war  will  also  do 
nothing  against  war.  Each  nation  believes,  and  believes  seri- 
ously, that  the  other  nation  has  attacked  it  and  will  attack  it 
again  in  the  future.  Conse<iuently,  it  also  believes  that  the 
only  way  to  w^ard  off  war  is  to  pile  up  armaments. 

Thus  even  this  indirect  effect  of  war  tends  to  strengthen,  the 
anti-social  side  of  a  nation's  character;  and  indeed  it  cannot 
be  otherwise  with  all  effects  of  war.  No  improvement  can  re- 
sult unless  and  until  every  individual  man  and  every  nation 
assumes  his  or  its  due  share  of  responsibility,  and  endeavors 
to  correct  his  or  its  defects.  Whether  this  is  possible,  and  how, 
will  be  discussed  in  Part  III  of  this  book.  An  essential  pre- 
liminary condition,  however,  is  that  the  different  nations 
should  not  continue  to  be  so  distressingly  blind  as  each  one  is 
to  shovel  all  responsibility  on  to  the  others.  This  alarmingly 
great  lack  of  sense  of  responsibility  would  disappear  of  itself 
if  once  a  responsible  European  association  were  established ; 

1  "Die  Agonie  des  Dreibundes — das  letzte  Jahrzehnt  italienischer  Un 
treiie"   ("The  Death-throes  of  the  Triple  Alliance:   the  Last  Ten  Ytin.s 
of  Italy's  Bad  Faith")   by  Baron  Leopold  von  Chlumecky,  101.3. 


SELECTION  BY  MEANS  OF  WAR  121 

for  the  saying  that  ''as  thy  day  is,  so  shall  thy  strength  be" 
virtually  amounts  to  this,  that  on  whomsoever  responsibility  is 
placed  becomes  himself  responsible. 

But  if  the  sense  of  responsibility  is  destroyed  by  proclaim- 
ing that  "everything  is  allowable  in  war  if  you  are  only  strong 
enough  to  enforce  it,"  this  causes  the  individual  human  being 
to  degenerate  and  to  swerve  from  his  true  destiny. 

§  47. — Insults  and  Libels 

Even  Hume  says :  ^ 

When  our  own  nation  is  at  war  with  any  other,  we  detest  them 
under  the  cliaracter  of  cruel,  perfidious,  unjust,  and  violent :  but 
always  esteem  ourselves  and  allies  equitable,  moderate,  and  merciful. 
.  .  .  The  treachery  [of  our  commander]  we  call  policy;  his  cruelty 
is  an  evil  inseparable  from  war.  In  short,  every  one  of  his  faults 
we  either  endeavor  to  extenuate  or  dignify  it  with  the  name  of  that 
virtue  which  approaches  it. 

This  was  written  two  hundred  years  ago,  but  although  na- 
tions  to-day  have  far  more  opportunity  of  getting  to  know 
one  another,  things  do  not  seem  to  have  altered,  save  that  there 
is  no  longer  a  Hume  to  scotf  at  them  or  a  George  III  to  ap- 
point any  such  scoffer  uuder-secretary  of  state.^ 

No,  hatred  and  lying  have  become  holy;  and  no  effort  is 
spared  to  proclaim  hate  and  contempt  as  brutally  as  possible, 
whether  by  means  of  derisive  proclamations  dropped  by  air- 
men (often  strongly  I'eminisceut  of  the  "heroic  speeches"  of 
the  Trojan  War),  or  by  official  proclamations.  Discerning 
persons  may  merely  smile  at  these,  but  by  the  people  they  are 
believed ;  and  for  a  long  time  a  great  many  really  did  look 
upon  their  enemies  as  contemptible,  inferior,  and  divided 
among  themselves.  Reports  of  revolutions  in  Odessa  and  I'aris 
and  of  risings  in  India,  Egypt,  Ireland,  and  the  South  African 
Union  were  readily  believed;  but  when  the  enemy  in  his  turn 

1  David  Humo'a  "Treatise  of  Human  Nature."  ]  740,  II,  2,  3.  Part 
dealin;^  with  love  and  liate. 

-  Hume  was  for  a  short  time  undersecretary  of  state  in  176.3. — Trans- 
lator. 


122  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

reported  (with  equally  slight  justification)  revolts  in  Berlin, 
this  was  considered  despicable. 

The  British  Army  was  supposed  to  be  just  a  parcel  of  riff- 
raff, with  nothing  better  to  show  for  themselves  than  "speed 
records  in  running  away"  and  who  pinned  all  their  faith 
to  stone-throwing  Basutos  or  Afghans  with  their  clubs. 

As  for  the  Russians,  their  army  was  supposed  to  consist 
mainly  of  ''cowardly  deserters,"  their  shells  to  be  ''filled  with 
sand,"  and  their  tins  of  preserves  with  "straw,"  while  their 
commissariat  officers  were  described  as  thieves  and  rogues. 
As  for  the  French,  they  had  only  an  army  of  "cliildren  and 
old  men,"  who  went  about  in  "patent-leather  boots  with  holes 
in  them."  The  Serbians  were  demoralized;  they  had  no  sup- 
plies and  no  ammunition,  and  were  only  too  glad  to  be  made 
prisoners  by  the  Austrians.  As  for  the  Belgians,  they  were 
represented  only  as  rascally  freebooters. 

Then  followed  a  whole  series  of  calumnies,  some  of  them 
the  traditional  ones  in  use  from  time  immemorial,  some  of 
them  new  ones,  often  absolute  inventions,  but  also  sometimes 
containing  a  grain  of  truth,  albeit  mostly  a  quite  harmless 
grain.  Probably  every  war  since  the  thirteenth  century  has 
begun  with  the  ever-successful  attempt  to  persuade  the  masses 
that  their  M'icked  enemy  has  been  poisoning  wells,^  only  it 
would  be  difficult  to  prove  that  in  former  wars  even  university 
professors  helped  to  disseminate  such  rumors  I  In  view  of 
the  prevalent  dread  of  bacilli,  it  is  easy  to  understand  why  at 
this  time  cholera  germs  should  have  been  fixed  uj^on ;  but  as  a 
medical  man,  I  can  scarcely  say  I  am  delighted  that  this  un- 
savory business  should  have  been  laid  to  the  charge  of  French 
doctors. 

It  was  easy  enough  to  explain  why  the  Russians  afterward 
leveled  similar  accusations  against  the  Germans;  for  a  gen- 

1  Maria  Theresa,  for  instance,  wrote  on  July  22,  1778:  "It  is  said 
that  near  London  a  Bohemian  has  been  hanged  who  was  carrying  ar- 
senic on  Iiim  for  poisoning  wells.     This  would  be  the  last  straw." 


SELECTION  BY  MEANS  OF  WAR  123 

eral  ^  who  did  uot  know  that  the  great  uumbers  of  vials  con- 
taiiiiiig  cholera  bacilli  to  be  found  in  German  military  hospitals 
were  used  for  inoculations  against  disease,  had  jumped  to  the 
C'Oiielusiou  that  the  Germans  must  be  using  them  to  poison 
wells. 

And  now  for  the  gouged-out  eyes.  In  all  military  hospitals 
they  were  said  to  have  been  seen.  Here,  again,  it  is  possible 
that  those  who  drst  spread  the  report  acted  in  good  faith,  and 
may  have  been  misled,  for  instance,  by  the  freciuency  of  in- 
juries to  the  intersection  of  the  optic  nerve,  which  results  in 
absolute  blindness.  But  except  for  a  very  short  time  these 
slanderers  must  have  known  better;  for  the  most  careful  in- 
vestigations were  instituted  in  Germany  by  Provost  Dr.  Kauf- 
manu  -  of  Aix-la-Chapelle  and  by  an  anonymous  writer  on 
the  staff  of  the  "Vorwarts";  and  in  Austria,  where  the  Serbi- 
ans were  alleged  to  have  done  the  same  thing,  by  Professor 
Karl  Brockhausen  of  V^ienna.  The  last  named  even  oti'ered 
a  reward  of  fifty  kronen  for  any  information  as  to  an  au- 
thenticated case  of  a  German  or  Austrian  whose  eyes  had  been 
gouged  out,  yet  not  one  such  authenticated  ease  was  brought 
to  light.  Energetic  measures  ought  then  to  have  been  insisted 
upon  to  prevent  legends  of  this  sort  arising;  but  notiiing  was 
really  done,  and  large  portions  even  of  the  educated  German 
public  still  believe  that  in  Belgium  German  soldiers  had  their 
eyes  gouged  out.^ 

1  Cf.  General  Cilinsky's  proclamation. 

-Letter  from  l)r  Kiiiiliiiann,  Piovo^^t  of  tlie  Colh^giate  Cliuroh,  to 
the  "Kiilnisilie  Zeitimg"  of  Sept.  28,   1IM4. 

3  At  tlie  end  of  Aiiirust  or  bejzinning  of  Septemljer,  1M14,  a  Swiss 
hotelkeeper,  a  (Jernian  l»y  birth  and  a  Swiss  by  naf iirali/.ation  only, 
s-liiiued  uie  a  letter  which  lie  hail  rei-eived  from  Diiss^elihirt,  and  tVie 
writer  of  which  said  tliat  he  with  his  own  eyes  had  seen  forty  men  in  a 
Oernian  hospital  (1  think  that  of  Diisseldorf)  whose  eyes  had  been 
ifoujied  ont  by  the  Helj^ians.  1  asked  this  hotelkeeper  wliether  he  really 
believed  this.  "Oh,  of  course  I  do,"  he  said.  At  the  time  such  letters 
as  this  were  being  received  by  certainly  hundreds  and  jjrobably  thnu- 
ands  of  Swiss  people  with  friends,  relatives,  or  acquaintances  in  C^r- 
many. 


124  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

Again,  in  Denmark  and  elsewhere  Belgian  children  are  said 
to  have  been  exhibited  whose  eyes  the  Germans  were  alleged 
to  have  gouged  out :  and  even  if  from  here  it  is  not  so  easy  to 
test  such  statements  as  it  was  to  investigate  allegations  about 
what  was  done  in  Germany,  yet  it  may  be  at  once  assumed 
that  in  all  probability  this  is  another  instance  of  malicious 
slander. 

That  persons  have  been  seen  with  their  hands  crushed  or  per- 
haps cut  off  is  possible,  although  definite  information  on  this 
point  is  not  obtainable ;  but  that  Russians  and  Belgians  sys- 
tematically mutilated  chiMren  in  this  way  is  something  which 
no  one  ought  to  believe  and  no  newspaper  write  and  publish 
without  having  first  convinced  themselves  of  its  truth. 

In  the  case  of  the  English  nurse  whose  breasts  were  stated 
to  have  been  cut  off  by  the  Germans  it  was  afterward  shown 
how  such  reports  arise.  An  English  court  of  justice,  to  which 
we  ought  to  be  grateful  for  having  traced  this  calumn}'  to 
its  origin,  was  able  to  prove  that  this  particular  nurse  suf- 
fered from  incurable  cancer  of  the  breast. 

There  is  even  a  grain  of  truth  in  the  statement  published  in 
all  the  newspapers  that  the  enemy  incorporated  convicts  in 
their  armies ;  for  in  every  nation  it  is  the  custom  when  war 
breaks  out,  as  on  all  other  ceremonial  occasions,  to  grant  an 
amnest}'  to  those  convicted  of  comparatively  venial  offences. 
A  similar  charge,  familiar  to  us  from  former  wars,  arose  in 
similar  fashion. 

In  East  Prussia  a  chief  forester  in  charge  of  a  German 
patrol  was  shot  by  the  Russians.     This  gave  rise  to  the  fable 

Auother  report,  which  was  also  circulated  by  the  Germans  a  little 
later  on,  wlien  the  first  Senegalese  troops  appeared  in  France,  was  that 
the  Senegalese  soldiers  had  been  seen  returning  from  the  front  with  long 
airings  of  ears  that  they  had  cut  oti'  from  German  soldiers.  This  story 
I  was  also  told  by  a  Swiss  hotelkeeper,  who  was  Swiss  by  naturaliza- 
tion only  and  German  by  birth;  and  he  went  so  far  as  to  name  a  cer- 
tain Swiss  who  had  recently  returned  from  England  via  France  and 
had  seen  these  strings  of  cut-off  German  ears.  I  took  the  trouble  to  go 
to  Lausanne  to  find  this  Swiss,  but  I  never  could  trace  him. — Trans- 
lator 


SELECTION  BY  MEANS  OF  WAR  125 

that  all  the  foresters  in  East  Prussia  had  been  shot,  and  a  gen- 
eral order  by  General  ^Marto  to  that  effect  was  even  published, 
and  later  on  a  radio  telegram  of  General  Rostowski. 

There  is,  of  course,  a  certain  amount  of  justification  for  the 
statement  as  to  the  enemy  disregarding  the  Red  Cross.  The 
range  of  modern  cannon  usually  does  not  exceed  from  twelve 
to  thirteen  miles  of  country,  which  is  generally  very  imper- 
fectly reconnoitered,  and  they  must  sometimes  hit  hospitals; 
and  if  it  is  nowadays  positively  dangerous  to  wear  a  Red 
Cross  armlet,  this  may  be  partly  accounted  for  by  there  being 
really  nothing  clearly  visible  to  aim  at  because  of  the  gray 
uniforms  worn,  so  that  everj'thing  seen  to  be  moving  is  shot 
at.     And  the  Geneva  armlet  can  be  seen  a  long  way  off. 

§  48. — Training  to  Hate 

The  ugly  aspect  of  these  calumnies  is  that  on  both  sides 
they  are  increasing.  Let  us  assume  that  behind  the  front  a 
drunken  Iroquois  kills  a  captured  Mohican.^  If  no  one  is 
any  the  wiser,  there  the  matter  will  end ;  but  if  it  is  published 
far  and  wide  among  the  Mohicans,  then  the  latter  will  murder 
the  next  three  Iroquois  taken  prisoner,  then  the  Iroquois,  wish- 
ing to  be  "justly  avenged,"  will  kill  all  prisoners.  Thus, 
owing  to  its  having  become  known,  an  isolated  action  becomes 
general,  and  thus  even  in  1914  atrocities  were  increased 
owing  to  the  one-sided  nature  of  the  statements  given 
out. 

So  it  was  and  so  it  was  found  to  be.  Let  us  even  assume 
that  the  righteous  German  had  none  but  chivalrous  motives 
for  taking  the  field.  Now  he  hears  that  the  enemy  sometimes 
kill  and  sometimes  do  violence  to  defenseless  women,  old 
men  and  children,  and  sometimes  send  them  on  in  front  in 
order  to  protect  themselves  against  German  bullets.  Next  he 
hears  that  vessels  engaged  in  the  dangerous  work  of  mine- 
sweeping  are  manned  by  defenseless  German  prisoners;  or, 

1  Not  knowing,'  wlio  in  thi^j  war  first  committed  these  atrocitiee,  I 
select  this  tictitioua  instance  of  extinct  races. 


126  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

as  stated  in  a  grand  general  staff  report  of  May,  1915,  that 
the  French,  when  digging  trenches,  made  German  prisoners 
stand  in  a  row,  thus  forming  a  living  wall  to  protect  them 
against  German  attacks.  Next  he  hears  that  the  Turcos  are 
cutting  oft"  Germans'  heads,  and  carrying  them  about  in  their 
knapsacks  as  "war  souvenirs,"  and  exhibiting  with  a  yell  of 
bestial  triumph  striugs  of  cut-off  noses  and  ears;  that  the 
Russians  are  cutting  off  German  children's  hands;  that  Bel- 
gian girls  are  gouging  out  our  soldiers'  eyes;  that  the  Eng- 
lish want  to  starve  German  women  and  children  to  death ;  that 
the  Serbians  are  assassins,  and  the  Montenegrins  sheep-stealers, 
the  Italians  a  pack  of  scoundrels,  and  the  Japanese  half- 
monkeys.  In  short,  he  is  so  overwhelmed  by  all  these  mean 
and  baseless  statements  which  he  hears  that,  however  kindly 
he  may  be  by  nature,  he  must  inevitably  be  convinced  that  all 
mankind  except  the  inhabitants  of  the  German  Empire,  the 
Austro-Hungarian  monarchy,  the  Sultanate  of  Turkey,  and 
the  territories  of  the  Turko-Tatar  Bulgarian  people  ^  is  rotten 
to  the  core. 

Even  if  a  spark  of  respect  for  human  nature  still  contrives 
to  persist,  our  newspapers  chime  in  and  tell  people  of  what 
sort  of  crew  mankind  really  consists.  No  term  of  abuse  is 
abusive  enough  to  describe  the  enemy.  ' '  Fliegende  Blatter 's ' ' 
old  joke  about  the  subaltern  who  begged  the  rhinoceros's 
pardon  for  having  just  compared  it  with  his  recruit  Meyer 
has  not  only  been  resuscitated  in  the ' '  Deutsche  Tageszeitung, ' ' 
which  would  not  matter,  but  also  in  the  speeches  of  German 
professors.  The ' '  Deutsche  Tageszeitung ' '  once  remarked  that 
to  call  Russians  and  Frenchmen  swine  was  insulting  the  Ger- 
man domestic  animal  of  that  name;  and  Professor  Eucken, 
after  railing  at  the  English  as  low  Pharisees,  adds  that  such 
a  comparison  is  positively  insulting  to  the  Pharisees.  Simi- 
larly, Ludwig  Deinhardt  says  that  any  one  calling  Edward 
VII  a  Mpphistopheles  is  insulting  Goethe.     Why  Goethe  is  a 

1  While   I   am   writing  this,   the  Rumanians   are   trying  to   make   up 
their  minds  whether  tliey  are  a  lofty  or  a  debased  people 


SELECTION  BY  MEANS  OF  WAR  127 

question  which  will  probably  have  to  be  dealt  with  in  a  chapter 
on  the  influence  of  war  upon  the  intellect. 

Even  worse  things  have  been  said  than  these,  and  every  one 
who  reads  the  speeches  of  our  German  professors  must,  if  he 
take  them  seriously,  come  to  the  conclusion  that  we  are  wag- 
ing war  upon  brutes,  and  that  conse(iuently  the  majority  of 
human  beings  are  beasts.  Whoever  thinks  thus,  however, 
cannot  continue  to  have  any  respect  for  human  dignity,  and 
the  foundations  of  his  own  morality  are  consequently  sapped. 

Of  course  the  Germans  as  a  whole  do  not  consist  of  wholly 
lofty  and  morally  perfect  natures  any  more  than  does  any 
other  nation.  What  has  just  been  said,  however,  shows  very 
clearly  that  the  present  war  has  a  brutalizing  effect  upon  even 
the  most  moral  human  being,  and  unhappily  certain  newspap- 
ers intentionally  aim  at  thus  brutalizing  their  readers.  For 
instance,  Ilerr  Hugo  Caekcr,  war  correspondent  of  the  "Stettin 
Generalanzeiger, "  expressly  states  that  he  reports  all  atroci- 
ties, so  as  to  make  an  end  of  "all  such  fine  things  as  pity."  Is 
this  really  so  desirable?  Or  was  not  Mr.  H.  N.  Brailsford 
right  when  he  wrote  in  the  "Daily  News"  of  mid-September, 
1914,  that  long  descriptions  of  atrocities  have  only  one  effect 
— to  whet  the  desire  for  retaliation,  and  that  in  time  they 
would  create  a  Europe  in  which  there  was  no  longer  any 
room  for  such  sentiments  as  fraternity  and  humanity.  And 
was  not  Professor  Wilhclm  Forster  ^  also  right  when  he  wrote 
as  long  ago  as  1910  that  the  poisoning  of  men's  imaginations 
and  the  dissemination  of  damaging  suggestions  by  too  much 
newspaper  writing  was  threatening  to  become  one  of  the  great- 
est dangers  to  civilized  humanity? 

The  first  j'ear  of  the  war,  indeed,  has  proved  both  to  have 
been  right,  and  no  one  can  absolve  our  censorship,  in  other 
respects  severe  enough,  from  the  reproach  of  having  intended 
all  atrocities  to  be  reported ;  for  it  would  be  absurd  to  pretend 
that  those  at  the  head  of  it  do  not  perceive  what  the  ultimate 

1  Professor  W.  Forsfrr,  "The  Daily  Reporting  of  Sensational  Occur- 
rences," in  "Der  Tag,"'  January  19,  1910. 


128  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

effect  of  their  measures  must  be.  Now  that  a  censorship  exists, 
it  is  part  of  the  censor's  professional  duty  to  realize  things  of 
this  kind. 

Furthermore,  was  the  party  truce  in  Germany  alone  re- 
sponsible for  virtually  not  a  single  voice  having  been  raised 
against  the  press  saying :  ' '  We  are  ashamed  that  there  should 
be  German  newspapers  and  German  men,  officials  and  others, 
who  made  bold  to  resort  to  such  methods,  of  rendering  their 
country  an  alleged  service.  Quite  apart  from  the  impression 
produced  abroad,  both  among  neutrals  and  among  our  ene- 
mies, did  no  one  consider  the  effect  which  such  proceedings 
must  have  upon  the  moral  sense  of  our  own  people?" 

Yes,  it  will  be  replied,  but  the  people  had  to  be  egged  on 
to  make  them  determined  to  resist  to  the  uttermost.  For  a 
time  this  effort  may  have  succeeded,  but  in  the  long  run  it 
failed  just  because  those  who  instituted  this  campaign  of 
calumny  were  not  far-sighted  enough  to  realize  that  it  would 
also  have  the  indirect  effort  of  driving  the  enemy  to  resist  to 
the  uttermost.  Thus  the  relation  between  the  two  belligerents 
has  not  been  changed,  and  the  sole  residue  of  this  attempt  to 
influence  popular  feeling  is  mutual  hate  and  boundless  con- 
tempt, which  were  wholly  unnecessary.  A  certain  Dr.  Hanns 
Floerke  of  Munich  has  even  undertaken  to  collect  and  publish 
the  "Documents  of  Hate." 

The  real  sufferer,  however,  is  the  people,  whom  the  world 
calls  barbarous  because  their  press  and  their  Government 
could  not  restrain  themselves.  Even  if  this  epithet  may  still 
be  in  general  repudiated,  yet  it  must  unfortunately  be  ad- 
mitted that  in  these  last  two  years  we  have  at  any  rate  become 
much  more  like  barbarians. 

Nothing  is  now  heard  about  all  these  infamous  deeds,  and 
it  might  be  asked  why  am  I  unearthing  so  many  ancient  and 
already  half- forgotten  stories?  It  is  a  remarkable  peculiar- 
ity of  man,  however,  that  the  conclusions  he  draws  from  all 
manner  of  isolated  experiences  sink  deep  into  ^is  soul,  and 
there  persist  long  after  he  has  forgotten  how  he  ever  came  to 


SELECTION  BY  MEANS  OF  WAR  129 

such  conclusions.  They  persist,  indeed,  even  if  he  has  admit- 
ted that  the  basis  for  them  was  false.^  Hence  my  justification 
for  recalling  what  has  happened  in  the  recent  past.  What  I 
meant  to  convey  to  my  readers  was  this:  "You  see,  here  are 
the  reasons  for  your  being  so  full  of  hate.  You  see  that 
these  reasons  were  bad,  and  you  yourselves  no  longer  believe 
in  them.  Now  w411  you  not  come  to  the  only  conclusion  pos- 
sible for  a  logical  person,  and  give  up  hating?  Will  you  not 
have  courage  to  think?  Believe  me,  whoever  thinks  can 
scarcely  hate.  At  any  rate,  he  cannot  hate  men,  but  only  in- 
stitutions. ' ' 

§  49. — Training  to  Lie 

This  change  of  attitude  to  all  old-established  conceptions 
must  be  called  a  form  of  mental  affection  which  has  seized  upon 
a  whole  people.  This  was  discussed  by  Herr  Albert  Moll  in  an 
article  published  in  the  very  early  days  of  the  war,  in  which 
he  mentions  the  well-known  fact  that  at  times  of  universal 
excitement  even  persons  who  believe  themselves  to  be  speaking 
truth  in  reality  bear  false  witness.  He  shows  how  the  terrors 
of  war,  the  hatred  artificially  engendered  by  government 
against  those  who  began  the  war,  people's  desire  to  help  their 
country  by  accusing  the  enemy,  and  many  other  like  tend- 
encies cannot  fail  to  have  disastrous  effects.  He  himself  un- 
wittingly afiiords  a  proof  of  how  apparently  omnipresent  tiiis 
wholesale  insinuation  was  by  being  himself  unable  to  perceive 
all  these  injurious  effects  except  in  the  case  of  Germany's 
enemies. 

llerr  Albert  Moll,  I  admit,  insists  that  those  who  signed  the 
report  of  the  Belgian  Committee  of  Investigation  had  certainly 
no  reputation  for  capacity  for  sifting  evidence,  and  he  hints 
that  he  himself  has  some  notion  of  how  this  should  be  done. 

1  In  my  work  on  the  reasons  for  believing  in  a  myogenous  theory  of 
heartbeats.  I  gave  a  concrete  and  very  instructive  instance  of  this. 
This  work  is  in  the  library  of  Anatomy  and  Pliysiology,  Physiological 
Department,  1010.     Page  64  of  the  separate  reprint. 


130  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

He  may  rest  assured  that  no  one  will  assert  that  he  erred  con- 
sciously. He,  too,  will  be  classed  with  those  "who  believe 
they  are  speaking  truth,  although  their  evidence  is  in  reality 
wholly  false. ' '  The  hypnotizing  effects  of  war,  indeed,  are  ter- 
rible, and  no  one  can  be  reproached  with  lying  when  so  many 
others  are  doing  likewise.  Only  no  one  ought  to  assert  that 
it  is  good  to  abandon  oneself  unconsciously  to  this  frenzy  of 
lying. 

It  may  be  at  once  admitted  that  lying  is  often  useful  to 
individual  men,  inasmuch  as  they  can  sometimes  keep  afloat 
owing  to  a  lie,  when,  had  the  truth  come  out,  they  must  long 
ago  have  gone  under.  Now,  is  there  any  object  in  keeping 
afloat  in  this  wise?  In  certain  circumstances  assuredly  there 
is.  If  a  particular  human  being  (or  a  particular  nation)  is 
passing  through  a  critical  time,  and  I  know  that  if  he  can  come 
safely  through  it  he  will  be  able  to  take  up  his  life  again 
energetically  and  perfectly  normally,  then  I  may  try  to  help 
him  by  a  lie ;  and  although  this  is  perhaps  not  morally  right, 
yet  it  is  justiflable  on  considerations  of  general  humanity.  As 
every  one  knows,  doctors  very  frequently  do  something  of  this 
sort,  but  it  is  plain  that  there  must  be  some  unselfish  consid- 
eration at  stake,  for  whoever  lies  in  his  own  interest  is  simply 
a  liar  and  nothing  else. 

Now,  the  Government  holds  that  it,  like  a  skilful  physician, 
is  entitled  to  tell  the  people  lies,  and  therefore  it  has  always, 
and  particularly  during  the  war,  endeavored  to  defend  official 
methods  of  reporting  events.  Over  and  over  again  we  have 
been  told  that  we  had  been  forced  into  a  critical  position,  in 
which,  to  use  the  "technical  expression,"  we  must  "hold  out"; 
and  in  such  circumstances,  it  was  added,  there  was  only  too 
much  justiflcation  for  lying  being  considered  allowable.  The 
belief  prevailed  that  the  people  would  be  capable  of  more  re- 
sistance if  they  had  no  suspicion  of  the  true  state  of  affairs ; 
and  it  was  therefore  considered  justifiable  to  prevent  their 
becoming  acquainted  with  the  situation.  War  is  thus  a  train- 
ing in  lying,  and  every  conceivable  subsidiary  moral  purpose 


SELECTION  BY  MEANS  OF  WAR  131 

vanishes,  since  this  lying  is  done  solely  for  the  benefit  of  our- 
selves and  our  own  nation. 

The  demoralizing  effects  of  this  lying  are  most  strongly 
marked  in  the  case  of  the  stay-at-home  civilian  population. 
The  soldier  is  less  injuriously  affected,  for  those  who  are 
confronted  with  facts  must  face  them  in  a  manner  both  prac- 
tical and  to  some  extent,  therefore,  truthful.  When  the  sol-« 
dier  at  the  front  sees  how  his  enemy  also  dies  for  his  cause, 
he  learns  to  respect  him.  He  may  and  probably  ought  to 
think  himself  and  his  fellows  better  soldiers  than  the  enemy ; 
but  he  is  compelled  by  the  severity  of  the  struggle  not  very 
seriously  to  underrate  the  latter.  While  in  Germany  the 
enemy  was  still  being  blackguarded,  the  first  news  arrived 
from  the  front.  It  mentioned  how  skillfed  were  the  Russians 
in  subterranean  warfare,  how  perfect  was  their  equipment 
in  many  respects,  and  how  honestly  these  "Moscovite  hordes" 
believed  in  the  sacredness  of  their  czar's  cause.  Tidings  also 
came  of  French  bravery,  of  the  doggedness  of  the  British 
and  their  contempt  for  death,  and  of  the  heroic  courage  of 
the  Serbians.  Yet  while  one  soldier  was  doing  justice  to  the 
other,  the  newspapers  at  home  went  on  lying  and  libeling, 
without  reflecting  that  whoever  belittles  his  enemy  belittles  his 
own  victory,  and  that,  supposing  he  is  defeated,  his  defeat  be- 
comes a  disgrace. 

§  50. — Franc-Tireur  Warfare 

There  is  no  more  crass  instance  of  the  odious  and  unjust 
ideas  about  the  enemy  than  the  varying  judgments  passed 
upon  franc-tireur  warfare.  Has  it  never  occurred  to  any  one 
that,  while  it  is  an  insult  to  call  a  man  a  "franc-tireur,"  yet 
to  call  him  by  the  German  translation  of  this  word  ^  is  con- 
sidered a  compliment?  What  patriotic  German  heart  does 
not  beat  faster  at  the  thought  of  Schill's  volunteers  in  1807, 
or  of  Liitzow's  volunteers  in  1813?  Who  does  not  consider 
both  the  shooting  of  Schill's  eleven  officers  at  Wesel  on  Sep- 

1  Freiachdrler,  or  volunteer,  armed  insurgent. 


132  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

tember  16,  1809,  and  the  shooting  of  Andreas  Hofer  at  Mantua 
on  Februaiy  20, 1810,  wicked  and  tyrannical  acts  ?  ^  Yet  these 
men  had  risen  in  wrath  not  only  against  their  arch-enemy  Na- 
poleon, but  also  against  their  divinely  appointed  Prussian  or 
Bavarian  king. 

What  was  right  for  the  Germans,  however,  is  supposed  to 
be  wrong  for  the  French  and  Belgians,  whose  armed  insur- 
gents are  perpetually  referred  to  as  the  lowest  dregs  of  hu- 
manity. Thus  in  his  report  to  the  President  of  the  United 
States,  his  Majesty  the  German  Emperor  spoke  of  being  obliged 
to  resort  to  the  "sternest  measures"  in  order  to  "terrify  the 
bloodthirsty  inhabitants  out  of  continuing  their  infamous 
acts  of  murder  and  violence."  And  this  despite  the  fact  that 
it  is  not  even  certain  that  we  are  not  bound  to  consider  these 
"defenders  of  their  country"  as  regular  troops.  According 
to  the  Belgian  military  system,  every  male  citizen  between  the 
ages  of  twenty  and  forty  belongs  to  the  "militia,"  keeps  his 
arms  at.home,  and  is  not  obliged  to  wear  uniform,  but  merely 
a  badge.  And,  after  all,  to  be  quite  honest,  who  in  Germany 
would  consider  the  East-Prussian  farmer  as  the  dregs  of  hu- 
manity were  he  to  seize  his  rusty  rifle  and  defend  his  village 
if  the  Russians  invaded  the  country  ? 

What  is  honorable  for  us  is  likewise  honorable  for  the 
enemy ;  and  if  the  defense  of  a  country  by  national  armies  is  a 
sacred  cause,  it  is  none  the  less  sacred  albeit  no  uniform  is 
worn.  Even  Georg  Herwegh  scoffed  at  such  sophistries  in 
the  followi       lines  about  the  Greeks: 

Sie  taten,  was  sie  mochten, 
Die  Frechbeit  war  enorm, 
Sie  siegten,  wenn  sie  fochten, 
Audi  ohne  Uniform. 

1  That  the  troops  of  Schill  and  Liitzovv  were,  whenever  possible,  no 
uniform  makes  no  difference  from  tlie  point  of  view  of  popular  senti- 
ment, which  is  alone  under  discussion.  The  Tyrolese  did  not  wear  uni- 
form, and  as  for  the  Belgians,  1  shall  deal  with  them  later  on.  The 
Tyrolese  patriot  Andreas  Hofer  was  betrayed  to  the  French,  and  shot 
by  order  of  Napoleon. — Translator. 


SELECTION  BY  MEANS  OF  WAR  133 

Those  for  whom  Ilerwegh's  name  has  too  demagogic  a  sound 
may  be  reminded  of  good  old  Riickert  's  lines : 

Der  Bau'r  ist  nur  ein  schlechter  Schuft, 

Der  nach  Soldatenhilfe  ruft. 

Der  Bauer,  der  sich  selbst  macht  Luft, 

Den  Feind,  den  Schuft,  selbst  pufft  und  knufft, 

Der  Bauer  ist  kein  schlechter  Schuft. 

Here,  again,  the  opinion  of  the  soldier,  who,  after  all,  is 
alone  exposed  to  the  franc-tireurs'  bullets,  is  vastly  the  fairer. 
Yet  a  so-called  intellectual,  Herbert  Eulenberg,^  styling  him- 
self a  "representative  of  intellectual  Germany  of  to-day,"  ac- 
tually dares  to  say  in  his  reply  to  Roniain  Rolland,  ''The  Bel- 
gians simply  pounced  upon  the  enemy  like  Paris  Apaches,  and 
the  Lion  of  Flanders  would  have  utterly  disowned  such  jack- 
als." And  Max  Hochdorf,-  once  an  esthete,  attributes  the 
franc-tireur  warfare  to  nothing  but  the  drinking  propensities 
and  religious  fanaticism  of  the  Belgian  peasants.  But,  on  the 
other  hand,  we  find  an  Austrian  officer,  writing  in  "Danzers 
Armeezeitung"  as  follows:  ''Take  the  last  enemy-armed  in- 
surgent who  from  mistaken,  but  profoundly  exalted,  patriot- 
ism shoots  at  the  Germans  from  his  hiding-place,  well  aware 
that  they  will  afterward  hang  him  and  even  burn  his  whole  vil- 
lage. In  my  eyes  such  a  man  ranks  far  above  a  newspaper 
scribe  blustering  away  with  his  bombastic,  but  worthless  and 
meaningless,  phrases,  and  spitting  at  the  enemy,  but  not 
fighting  him." 

This  abuse  of  Belgium  is  particularly  hateful,  she  being  pros- 
trate a)id  unable  to  defend  herself.  Her  newspapers  cannot 
appear,  her  citizens — those  who  still  live  in  their  own  country 
— are  silent  as  the  grave,  and  her  archives  open  to  the  con- 
queror. We  scarcely  insist  to-day  that  the  victor  should  be 
magnanimous,  but  why  heap  insult  on  the  defenseless  ?     Even 

1  Herbert  Eulenberg,  in  the  "Kolnische  Zcitiing"  of  September  17, 
1914,  No.  lOo.'i. 

2  Max  Hochdorf  in  the  "Berliner  Tageblatt"  of  September  9,  1914. 


134  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

Caesar  said  to  Ptolemy,  King  of  the  Barbarians,  who  caused 
Pompe}^  to  be  murdered  and  then  attempted  to  blacken  his 
memory : 

Tout  beau ! — Que  votre  haine.  en  son  sang  assouvie, 
N'aille  point  a  sa  gloire,  il  suffit  de  sa  vie.  ^ 

§  51. — TTar  and  Art 

It  has  been  said  often  enough  that  the  human  mind  finds 
congenial  occupation  in  war  and  art,  and  that  although  a  great 
general  needs  intelligence  and  character,  yet  in  the  main 
everything  depends  upon  his  intuitively  grasping  the  situa- 
tion as  a  whole,  which  is  a  task  presenting  difficulties  un- 
doubtedly calculated  to  appeal  to  an  artist's  nature.  Hanni- 
bal, Frederick  II  and  Napoleon  are  constantly  being  consid- 
ered as  artists,  and  their  battles  as  works  of  art. 

No  doubt  there  is  much  to  be  said  for  this  point  of  view,  and 
a  great  deal  might  be  urged  concerning  the  connection  be- 
tween the  "art  of  war"  and  other  forms  of  art.  For  our 
present  purpose,  however,  this  connection  is  of  no  impor- 
tance, the  one  question  concerning  us  being  whether  and  to 
what  extent  war  affects  the  various  forms  in  which  art  finds  ex- 
pression, and  whether  this  influence  is  good  or  bad.  It  will 
be  seen  to  be  in  any  case  very  slight,  and  in  virtually  every 
instance  in  which  it  can  be  traced  it  can  be  shown  to  be  de- 
leterious. 

Nevertheless,  it  is  artists  whose  enthusiasm  for  war  has 
generally  been  aroused  more  ciuickly  than  that  of  the  members 
of  any  other  liberal  profession.  Or,  rather,  they  are  the  first 
to  appear  enthusiastic,  because  persons  of  an  artistic  tempera- 
ment are  accustomed  to  give  freest  play  to  every  impulse  of 
the  moment.  Even  Rabelais  ^  says  jestingly  that  the  Latin 
word  helium  is  perhaps  connected  with  the  French  word  helle. 

Probably  no  one  believes  it,  but  there  are  still  people  who 

1  Corneille,  "La  mort  de  Pompee,"  1642. 

2  Frangois  Rabelais,  "Gargantua  et  Pantagruel,"  Livre  II  Prologue 
1550. 


SELECTION  BY  MEANS  OF  WAR  135 

say  and  write  that  war  and  the  national  enthusiasm  it  creates 
have  caused  art  to  blossom  forth.  True,  this  has  not  alwaj^s 
been  asserted,  for  Mars  and  the  Muses  used  to  be  represented 
as  opposites.  Here,  again,  Germany  has  contrived  to  set  the 
fashion.  Every  one  knows  how  Erich  Schmidt  not  merely 
curried  favor  in  court  circles,  but  even  acquired  Scherer's 
professorial  chair  by  showing  that  Frederick  II,  who  used  to 
murder  the  German  language,  and  his  Seven  Years'  War  were 
the  creator  of  German  literature;  and  since  this  doubtful 
achievement,  which  ]\lehring  ^  in  one  of  the  best  pamphlets  in 
the  world,  reduced  to  its  proper  proportions,  this  glorifica- 
tion of  tlie  influence  of  war  on  literature  has  become  fashion- 
able. In  reality,  there  is  no  sign  of  anything  of  the  sort; 
and  as  regards  lyrics  and  poetry  I  purpose  to  prove  this  in 
dealing  with  war  poetry.^  Here,  however,  I  will  confine  my- 
self to  a  few  remarks  about  the  plastic  arts. 

Not  many  words  need  be  wasted  on  the  subject  of  battle- 
j)ictures,  beloved  of  crowned  heads  and  the  terror  of  directors 
of  picture  galleries.  In  olden  times,  when  hand-to-hand  fight- 
ing still  took  place,  there  might  have  been  something  in  a  battle 
to  inspire  an  artist.  The  "Gigantomachy"  and  "The  Battle 
of  Alexander,"  for  instance,  are  undoubted  works  of  art,' 
which  possess  a  value  of  their  own,  apart  from  their  subject. 
In  the  time  of  the  great  Flemish  painters  fine  figures  of  war- 
riors engaged  in  hand-to-hand  fights  were  still  painted. 
Some  of  Rubens 's  battle-pictures  are  magnificent,  but  even 
in  his  time  it  was  the  animal  painter  Wouwerman  *  who  was 
most  famous  as  a  "battle-painter."     For  him  a  battle-picture 

1  Franz  Mebring,  "Die  Lessing-Legende,  eine  Rettung,"  Stuttgart, 
1893. 

-'See  §  182-185 

3  Whoever  would  fain  realize  the  value  of  one  such  battle-picture 
should  lose  himself  in  coiiteniplation  of  Mii-hael-aiigelo's  Florentine 
battle  cartoon  of  1504,  which,  just  because  it  was  a  work  of  art,  was  so 
far  from  pleasing  those  for  whom  it  was  executed,  who  wanted  a  battle- 
picture. 

■♦  Philip  Wouwennan,  161!)- 1008,  was  born  at  Haarlem,  and  is  espe- 
cially famous  now  as  a  painter  of  horses.     He  had  two  brothers,  whom 


136  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

afforded  an  opportunity  of  showing  his  white  horses  to  ad- 
vantage, just  as  Terborch  ^  in  his  pictures  of  soldiers  thinks 
only  of  showing  of  what  fine  material  the  foot-soldiers'  trous- 
ers were  made,  with  which  fact,  as  a  painter,  he  is  somewhat 
reproached. 

Then  came  the  period  of  powder-and-smoke  pictures,  which 
we  are  almost  tired  of  hearing  derided;  and  then  the  end  of 
the  battle-picture  proper  had  come.  Any  pictures  of  this  kind 
which  have  since  been  painted  were  produced  not  for  their 
own  sake,  but  because  they  were  patriotic  in  character ;  and  it 
is  no  mere  chance  that  not  a  solitary  one  of  these  patriotic 
pictures  has  proved  to  be  a  real,  original  work  of  genius.  The 
old  masters  who  painted  the  gold-framed  Madonnas  were 
likewise  inspired  thereto  by  their  subject,  and  how  fine  an 
achievement  was  theirs !  Apparently  it  is  true  that  the  great 
artists'  minds  were  dominated  by  a  desire  to  express  their 
conception  of  the  Virgin,  and  the  small  minds  only  by  enthusi- 
asm for  battles. 

No  one,  moreover,  has  ever  been  carried  away  by  the  con- 
ception of  a  battle  as  such,  for  the  few  notable  nineteenth- 
century  battle-pictures  were  painted  only  when  men's  feel- 
ings had  been  stirred  by  some  special  event.  Two  periods 
can  be  distinguished,  the  French  or  Napoleonic  period,  and 
the  German  period  about  1870.  The  following  painters  be- 
long to  the  former:  Antoine-Jean  Gros  (1717-1835),  Horace 
Vernet  (1789-1863),  Ernest  Meissonier  (1815-1891),  and 
Kaffet  (1804-1860).  It  is  worthy  of  note,  however,  that  Jean 
Gros's  most  famous  picture,  *'Les  Pesti feres  de  Jaffa,"  (Na- 
poleon contemplating  those  stricken  with  plague  at  Jaffa) 
shows  the  emperor  just  at  a  time  when  he  is  doing  something 
which  has  no  connection  with  war. 

he  taught  and  who  were  both  artists,  the  one  a  landscape-painter  and 
tho  other  a  painter  of  landscapes  and  canals. — Translator. 

1  Gerard  Terborch  or  Terbiirg  was  a  Dutch  painter  born  at  Zwolle. 
His  great  characteristics  are  accuracy  and  finish.  His  portrait,  as  a 
town  councilor  of  De  venter,  is  in  the  Hague  Picture  Gallery. — Trans- 
lator. 


SELECTION  BY  MEANS  OF  WAR  137 

Among  German  war-painters  may  be  mentioned  Wilhelm 
Camphausen  (1818-1885),  Carl  Bleibtreu  (1829-1892),  An- 
ton von  Werner  (1843-1915),  Arthur  Kampf  (1867).  Carl 
Roehling  (1855-1912),  and  Adolf  von  Menzel  (1815-1905). 
As  every  one  knows,  Adolf  von  Menzel  is  the  only  one  of  these 
who  is  of  any  importance,  and  he  drew  his  inspiration  not  from 
the  glorious  campaign  through  which  he  himself  went,  but 
from  the  vanished  beauty  of  the  Frederickian  world. 

Even  allowing  that  here  and  there  a  painter  of  genius  has 
felt  interested  in  great  generals,  nevertheless  painting  un- 
questionably owes  virtually  nothing  to  war  as  war,  at  any 
rate  nothing  which  can  be  compared  with  what  art  owes  to 
Christianity.  When  we  come  to  such  a  thoroughly  social 
art  as  architecture,  we  find  that  it  owes  even  less  to  war  than 
does  painting.  The  famous  ''barracks-like"  style  of  building 
is  a  synonym  for  a  monotonous  style.  That  soldiers,  more- 
over, even  now  live  in  tents  or  earthen  huts,  at  any  rate  when 
really  on  active  service,  is  only  another  proof  of  the  conserva- 
tive and  retrogressive  nature  of  war. 

Beyond  this  there  is  really  hardly  anything  to  be  said  about 
the  direct  connection  between  war  and  art,  for  it  is  scarcely 
worth  while  mentioning  the  beautifully  ornamented  cannons 
of  the  so-called  baroque  period.  Neither  does  the  present  war, 
despite  all  the  enthusiasm  about  it,  seem  as  if  it  meant  to  do 
much  for  art,  although  it  affords  no  lack  of  possibilities  of  in- 
spiration. As  we  all  know,  in  its  early  days  numbers  of 
photographers  and  cinematograph-operators  were  ordered  to 
the  front,  for  those  in  command  thought  it  would  be  a  fine 
thing  afterward  to  rattle  off  a  series  of  victories  even  faster, 
if  possible,  than  they  had  been  won.^  But  even  the  cinema- 
tograph system,  like  so  much  else,  was  found  to  require  modi- 
fication. It  was  soon  perceived  to  be  a  mistake  to  have  to  rely 
upon  reproducing  scenes  with  photographic  fidelity;  and  in 
order  to  lend  the  desired  life  to  "empty  battle-fields,"  a  num- 

1  For  instance,  at  the  beginning  of  the  abortive  attack  on  Verdun,  in 
February,  19 


138  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

ber  of  artists  were  dragged  to  the  seat  of  war.  By  means  of 
judicious  instructions  and  discreet  censoring  it  was  not  diffi- 
cult to  insure  tlie  pictures  of  these  gentry  fulfilling  reason- 
able patriotic  demands  far  better  than  photographs ;  but  only 
a  very  few  of  the  artists  taken  to  the  front  could  be  made  to 
produce  pictures  which,  even  from  the  artistic  point  of  view, 
were  superior  to  the  old  photographs.  This  result  may  seem 
regrettable,  but,  at  all  events,  it  proves  that  though  war  may 
be  able  to  make  paintings  more  patriotic,  it  is  not  able  to 
make  them  more  artistic,  about  which  opinions  will  differ 
according  to  what  each  person  expects  from  art. 

Now,  these  artistic  gentry,  whose  names  I  do  not  wish  to 
mention,  really  did  see  something  of  war.  They  had  free 
access  to  all  battle-fields,  no  matter  how  inaccessible  these 
were  rendered  by  barbed-wire  entanglements  and  other  de- 
fense works.  Motor-cars  were  provided  for  them;  they  were 
shown  lacerated  limbs  and  dead  horses,  men  frozen  to  death 
in  the  Carpathians  and  other  drowned  in  the  Masurian  Lakes, 
They  could  hear  the  roar  of  the  famous  motor  batteries,  and 
even,  fortune  favoring  them,  of  the  still  more  famous  42 's. 
Hindenburg  and  Mackensen,  however  unlike  they  might  oth- 
erwise have  been,  resembled  each  other  in  having  each  found 
time  to  sit  to  them.  In  short,  they  were  made  free  of  all  the 
beauty  and  greatness  which  modern  war  has  to  offer.  And 
with  what  result?  None,  except  for  the  fact  that  we  possess 
no  published  pictures  in  which  more  German  than  enemy 
dead  can  be  counted.  At  best  some  of  the  better  sort  of 
artists  felt  a  little  ''seedy"  afterward. 

Thus  does  war  transform  all  our  notions  of  truth,  goodness, 
and  beauty ;  but  it  does  not  improve  them. 


CHAPTER  IV 
The  Chosen  People 

I. — THE   ADVANTAGE   NATIONS   AKE   AHjEGED   TO   DERIVE   FROM 

VTAR 

§  52. — The  Injury  to  the  World  in  General 

If  war  is  to  be  considered  as  an  episode  in  the  struggle  for 
existence,  then  success  in  it  would  have  in  some  way  or  other 
to  benefit  not  merely  a  single  nation,  but  mankind  as  a  whole. 
That  is,  it  must  somehow  promote  man's  welfare  or  comfort 
or  further  his  intellectual  or  material  advancement.  Hence 
every  grain  of  com  harvested,  every-  new  kind  of  lamp  in- 
vented, every  method  of  production  which  saves  human 
strength,  everything  which  human  labor  or  human  genius 
creates  for  the  use  of  man,  benefits  the  world  in  general. 
Every  grain  of  corn  will  feed  some  human  being,  every  lamp 
wiU  give  some  one  light  some  evening,  and  every  improvement 
in  labor-saving  machinery  will  afford  him  free  time  and  leisure 
for  self-improvement. 

But  war  creates  nothing  substantially  valuable.  Possibly 
a  war  may  once  have  enabled  some  nation  to  get  some  good  out 
of  life  which  it  could  not  otherwise  have  procured,  just  as 
pocket-picking  may  have  done  for  some  person.  This,  how- 
ever, cannot  have  happened  often,  and  in  any  case  the  victor 
cannot  increase  his  well-being  by  more  than  the  amount  which 
the  vanquished  loses  by  being  deprived  of  the  reward  due  to 
him  for  his  labor.  At  best,  therefore,  war  may  cause  a  trans- 
ference of  well-being,  but  assuredly  not  an  increase  of  it, 
quite  apart  from  the  fact  that  in  general  the  less  capable,  but 

i.S9 


140  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

physically  stronger,  person  is  favored  at  the  expense  of  those 
who  are  more  capable,  but  weakly. 

In  reality  the  results  are  still  more  deplorable,  for  war 
destroys  what  is  substantially  valuable.  Houses  are  shot  to 
pieces,  crops  ruined,  and  human  beings  killed ;  but  nothing  of 
the  sort  is  produced.  Hence,  however  much  transference  of 
well-being  there  may  be,  the  balance  is  on  the  wrong  side,  even 
if,  as  Karl  Weber ^  says,  "a  few  ministers,  tradesmen,  and 
Jews"  may  make  handsome  profits.  Consequently  not  only 
war  itself,  but  also  all  work  connected  therewith,  is  a  waste  of 
energy  from  the  outset.  Moreover,  we  ought  to  reflect  that 
whoever  produces  anything  useful  enables  others  to  rest,  but 
whoever  destroys  anything  useful  obliges  others  to  replace  or 
regain  it. 

The  few  who  gain  by  war,  however,  who  are  mostly  also 
those  who  give  the  lead,  have  only  too  frequently  no  interest 
whatever  in  preventing  war.  Even  in  a  very  unsuccessful  war 
they  hardly  stand  to  lose  much.  Whatever  happens,  they  are 
the  gainers,  and  they  it  is  who  make  wars.  Bismarck  once 
said:^  "The  majority  are  usually  not  at  all  inclined  for 
war.  War  is  kindled  by  minorities,  or,  in  absolute  monarchies, 
by  rulers  or  cabinets,"  which  is  self-evident.  What  is  sig- 
nificant, however,  is  that  Bismarck  should  have  said  this,  for 
these  words  ^  prove  him  to  have  been  convinced  that,  if  the 
peoples  could  always  have  their  own  way,  there  would  be 
no  more  wars.  At  any  rate,  only  the  people  in  general  have  a 
real  interest  in  making  an  end  of  war;  and  if  this  is  ever  to  be 
done,  then  the  peoples  absolutely  must  take  matters  into  their 
own  hands. 

1  Karl  Weber:  "Demokrit  oder  hinterlassene  Papiere  eines  lachenden 
Philosophen:  Abschnitt  iiber  den  Krieg."  ( "'Democritus,  or  the 
posthumous  papers  of  a  laughing  Philosopher.  Chapters  Dealing  with 
War.") 

2  Bismarck's  speech  in  the  Reichstag  on  February  9,  1876. 

3  Kant  once  made  a  similar  observation,  but  in  the  form  of  a  definite 
claim.  "To  obtain  peace  the  form  of  government  ought  to  be  republi- 
can." 


THE  CHOSEN  PEOPLE  141 

No  one  need  imagine  that  Hague  Conferences  summoned  by 
Russian  or  other  absolute  nionarchs  will  ever  make  serious 
efforts  to  insure  peace.  None  save  those  interested  in  the 
realization  of  an  idea  are  in  a  position  to  bring  it  about,  and 
as  on\y  mankind  in  general  are  uniformly  interested  in  an 
end  being  put  to  war,  only  mankind  in  general  will  be  able 
to  etit'ect  anything. 

Each  individual  nation  may  continue  to  hope  that,  with 
the  help  of  exceptionally  good  cannon,  airships,  or  submarines, 
it  will  be  able  to  wrest  to  itself  in  war  some  special  privilege 
unconnected  with  labor,  and  therefore  greatly  coveted  by  the 
majority  of  mankind.  Such  calculations  may  or  may  not  be 
correct,  and  are  certainly  sufficiently  vague.  But  for  the 
world  in  general  it  is  as  clear  as  daylight,  clear  bej^ond  possi- 
bility of  mistake,  that  war  is  bad  business.  For  the  world 
in  general  war  means  loss. 

When,  therefore,  the  world  in  general  really  does  wake  up, 
then  will  general  and  lasting  peace  be  assured.  Peace  does 
not  mean  the  German  ''Empire,"  or  the  status  quo,  or  the 
"Holy  Alliance,"  or  the  "European  balance  of  power,"  but 
international  democracy;  that,  and  nothing  else.  Interna- 
tional democracy  need  not  begin  by  enforcing  peace,  but  if 
ever  it  does  exist,  then  it  goes  without  saying  that  it  will  not 
be  able  to  subsist  without  peace. 

§  53. — The  Advantages  of  War  to  an  Individual  Nation 

It  is  hard  to  say  whether  a  war  has  ever  helped  any  na- 
tion to  rise.  In  reality,  during  the  perpetual  wars  of  past 
times,  with  their  vacillating  fortunes,  every  nation  has  won 
some  wars,  to  which  fact  its  rise  might  be  attributed.  Never- 
theless, it  is  a  striking  fact,  and  one  which  affords  food  for 
reflection,  that  the  Chinese  and  the  Jews,  the  only  nations 
which  have  succeeded  in  holding  their  own  for  three  thousand 
years,  have  scarcely  ever  waged  wars,  and  if  they  did,  were 
invariably  beaten. 

It  can  be  positively  asserted  that  never  has  a  nation  perished 


142  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

because  of  haAing  been  beaten  in  war.     An  army  of  conquer- 
ors in  an  enemy  country  can  be  destroyed,  even  in  certain 
circumstances   absolutely   exterminated,   as  happened  to  the 
armies  of  Hannibal,   Teja,^   and  Napoleon.     But,   after  all, 
this  merely  proves  that  their  preceding  conquests  availed  noth- 
ing.   A  city  can  also  be  destroyed,  and  all  its  inhabitants 
slain ;  and  the  destruction  of  such  a  city  as  Carthage,  to  which 
large  tracts  of  territory  had  been  in  the  habit  of  paying  trib- 
ute, produces  the  impression  of  the  downfall  of  a  great  empire. 
No  true  nation,  however,   has  yet  been  exterminated  by 
war  in  its  own  country,  although  sometimes  this  may  happen 
afterward,  for  a  declining,  dying  nation  will  of  course  lose 
wars.     But  we  must  not  extend  this  paradox  so  as  to  make 
it  mean  that  a  nation  which  has  lost  a  war  is  bound  to  rise 
afterward.     At  all  events,  we  know  with  absolute  certainty 
that  in  the  case  of  all  nations  whose  decline  we  are  witness- 
ing to-day,  that  decline  was  not  caused  by  war.     The  red  In- 
dians, for  instance,  did  not  succumb  to  bullets,  but  to  brandy 
and  disease.     Similarly  the  Malayans  are  dying  out,  although 
they  have  never  been  conquered.     But  the  negroes,  on  the  con- 
trary, are  by  no  means  a  declining  race;  and  despite  their 
never  having  won  victories,  at  any  rate  not  in  America,  they 
are  beginning  to  become  a  danger  there. 

In  this  very  broad  sense,  therefore,  it  is  certainly  not  true 
that  war  operates  selection.  It  was  believed,  however,  that  a 
nation  could  obtain  so  many  advantages  through  a  successful 
war  that  afterward  it  would  be  able  to  live  more  easily,  and 
consequently  to  rise.  Now,  in  times  long  past  there  were  un- 
doubtedly advantages  in  making  war.  A  savage  had  only  to 
win  a  victory  in  order  to  obtain  everything  he  wanted.  From 
his  enemies'  already  prepared  fields  he  could  harvest  crops 

iTeja  (Teja  or  Teias)  was  the  last  king  of  the  East  Goths.  He 
■went  to  the  assistance  of  his  brotlier  Aligern,  wlio  was  besieged  in 
Cumse,  and  after  fighting  two  months  a  desperate  fight  against  su- 
perior forces,  he  fell  in  55.3,  and  with  him  the  greater  part  of  his  men. 
— Translator. 


THE  CHOSEN  PEOPLE  143 

which  he  had  not  sown,  stolen  herds  of  cattle  supplied  him 
with  food  and  clothing,  and  even  his  captured  enemies  were 
useful  as  slaves.  Later  on  accumulated  stores  or  perhaps 
treasures  of  gold  and  silver  made  war  still  more  profitable. 

Hence  so  long  as  wealth  consisted  solely  or,  at  any  rate, 
mainly  in  accumulated  and  transportable  stores  and  supplies, 
wars  continued  to  be  profitable,  and  afforded  a  strong,  brave, 
and  enterprising  people  great  prospect  of  success.  But  now 
the  wealth  of  a  person  or  a  nation  mainly  depends  on  credit ; 
that  is,  on  the  fact  that  his  or  its  signature  to  a  bill  or 
check  is  always  honored.  That  is,  it  depends  on  things  which 
are  not  transportable  or  there  and  then  transferable.  This 
of  necessity  means  that  robbery  and  violence  have  become 
as  uncertain  and  unprofitable  as  honest  labor  was  in  primitive 
times,  for  it  has  become  impossible  to  confiscate  wealth. 

Whether  this  statement,  which  Norman  Angell  ^  endeavors 
to  prove  theoretically,  is  of  quite  unlimited  application  would 
be  very  difficult  to  determine.  It  would  almost  seem  as  if, 
at  any  rate  in  private  life,  exploitation  still  continued  profit- 
able throughout  the  world.  Large  contractors  and  large 
landed  proprietors  everywhere  earn  vast  sums,  in  part  cer- 
tainly by  means  of  labor  performed  not  by  themselves,  but  by 
a  thousand  others  dependent  on  them ;  and  many  a  tchinovik 
still  continues  plundering,  very  often  according  to  old  and 
time-honored  methods.  Might  not  what  is  possible  for  the  in- 
dividual man,  however,  be  also  in  time  possible  for  large  com- 
munities? The  only  question,  therefore,  is  whether  war  is 
really  a  practical  method  of  personal  enrichment. 

§  54. — The  Unprofitableness  of  War  To-day 

From  the  purely  business  point  of  view  war  is  certainly  not 
a  practical  method  of  personal  enrichment ;  and  in  view  of 
the  vast  amount  of  capital  swallowed  up  by  a  modern  war, 
not  even  the  victor  can  hope  ever  to  see  his  outlay  again. 
If  we  reckon  only  the  direct  expenditure  on  army  and  navy, 

1  Norman  Angell's  "The  CJreat  lUuaion,"  Heinemann,    1910. 


144  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

together  with  the  lo&s  of  valuable  work  which  might  have  been 
done  by  the  recruits  annually  called  up,  and  take  no  account 
whatever  of  the  enormous  additional  losses  caused  by  con- 
tinued upheaval,  we  find  that  since  1870  Germany  has  spent 
on  war  and  preparations  for  war  a  sum  which,  if  capitalized, 
would  amount  to-day  to  about  two  hundred  thousand  millions.^ 
It  is  quite  obvious  that  such  sums  can  never  be  recovered 
either  by  war  indemnities  or  by  an  annual  tribute.  In  order 
to  collect  an  annual  tribute,  indeed,  more  millions  would  be 
required  for  the  armies  whose  duty  it  would  be  to  wrest  the 
tribute  from  the  population.' 

That  there  is  no  pecuniary  advantage  to  be  gained  even  from 
the  occupation  of  territory  is  also  obvious  so  long  as  private 
property  is  not  interfered  with,  which  probably  no  country 
to-day  would  either  wish  to  do  or  be  strong  enough  to  do. 
As  for  stealing  public  property,  commandeering  the  Bank  of 
England  reserves,  for  instance,  this  would  be  a  harmless  pleas- 
antry; for  little  would  be  found,  since  the  basis  of  a  country's 
wealth  is  its  credit. 

It  will  perhaps  be  objected  that  it  might  be  some  advantage 
to  a  poor  nation  to  occupy  a  rich  country,  for  the  taxes  in 
its  newly  acquired  territory  would  yield  such  large  sums  that 
its  own  taxpayers  would  be  relieved.  Let  us  go  to  the  utmost 
possible  length  in  our  assumptions,  and  suppose,  for  instance, 
that  in  the  present  war  the  68,000,000  Germans,  who  on  an 
average  pay  forty  marks  per  head  in  taxes,  annexed  12,- 
000,000   foreigners    (which    no   one   now    believes   possible), 

1  200,000,000,000  marks,  that  is,  taking  the  mark  at  its  pre-war  value, 
or  $50,000,000,000.— Translator. 

2  $50,000,000,000  is  probably  an  underestimate,  but  my  argument 
would  be  unaffected  were  the  amount  only  half  or  one  quarter  or  even 
only  one  tenth  as  large.  It  is  a  waste  of  time,  therefore,  to  endeavor  to 
rectify  these,  or  any  other  approximate  estimates  that  may  subse- 
quently be  cited,  in  order  to  make  it  appear  that  arguments  baaed 
on  them  can  thereby  be  rectified.  I  believe  I  can  confidently  assert  that 
all  figures  quoted  in  this  book  are  able  to  stand  the  test  of  close  scrutiny, 
in  that  they  prove  what  they  are  meant  to  prove  If  this  is  not  always 
so,  then  it  should  be  proved. 


THE  CHOSEN  PEOPLE  145 

and  that  these  12,000,000  foreigners,  if  similarly  taxed,  would 
be  able  to  pay  sixty  marks  each.  It  is  easy  to  calculate  that 
in  this  case  we  should  actually  save  2  marks  79  pfennige  in 
taxes;  but  as  the  war  necessary  to  enable  us  to  do  so  would 
impose  an  additional  burden  of  at  least  100  marks  on  every 
German,  then  100  marks  would  have  to  be  spent  to  earn  less 
than  three  marks.  Consequently,  on  closer  examination,  even 
this  mode  of  saving  turns  out  to  be  a  great  delusion. 

War,  in  short,  has  ceased  to  be  a  paying  concern.  From 
the  point  of  view  of  natural  science,  however,  this  is  a  matter 
of  secondar}'-  importance.  What  Normal  Angell  has  to  say  on 
this  subject  is  well  worth  reading.  What  is  more  important 
is  that  war  and  militarism  force  a  nation  on  to  an  absolutely 
wrong  tack.  This  cannot  but  do  harm — harm  which  can,  at 
any  rate,  be  partly  expressed  in  terms  of  pounds,  shillings,  and 
pence. 

The  construction  of  fortifications  impedes  the  growth  of 
cities  and  causes  land  to  be  withdrawn  from  cultivation.  The 
fact  that  the  state  needs  strategical  railways,  and  plans  its 
railway  system  accordingly,  means  that  not  enough  attention 
can  be  paid  to  the  convenience  of  railway  time-tables.  For 
instance,  it  is  military  opposition  which  has  hitherto  pre- 
vented the  electrification  of  railways  and  the  utilization  of 
the  water-power  of  the  Alps.  Again,  the  fact  that  the  state 
supports  only  such  industries  as  may  be  useful  to  it  in  time  of 
war  causes  the  labor  and  abilities  of  millions  of  human  beings 
to  be  expended  on  things  which  are  really  superfluous.  It 
goes  without  saying  that,  owing  to  the  possibility  of  war,  all 
kinds  of  property  must  be  senselessly  accumulated  where  it 
ought  not  to  be;  that  whole  branches  of  industry  are  forced 
into  unproductive  channels;  and  that,  owing  to  continual  un- 
certainty, every  one  in  general  is  hindered  in  the  free  and  full 
development  of  his  capabilities. 

But  setting  aside  all  this  enormous  loss  and  injury,  let  us 
consider  only  the  incontestable  facts  that  about  four  per  cent. 
of  the  male  working  population  of  Germany  are  permanently 


146  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

withdrawn  from  their  work  owing  to  universal  service,  and 
that  about  twelve  per  cent,  of  her  total  income  is  directly  ex- 
pended on  military  objects.  This  means  that  war  directly  ab- 
sorbs, even  in  peace-time,  about  one  sixth  of  man's  entire  ca- 
pacity for  work,  and  that  war's  demands  are  therefore  higher 
than  those  of  the  church,  which,  as  we  know,  has  been  content 
with  one  tenth. 

Now,  even  this  tenth  was  admitted  to  be  ruinous,  and  one 
day,  when  men  look  back  on  the  past,  what  will  be  said  of  a 
sixth,  which,  however,  probably  amounts  to  a  third,  owing 
to  the  indirect  losses  entailed  ?  Were  there  no  longer  any  risk 
of  war,  all  human  beings  would  need  to  work  from  one  and  a 
half  to  three  hours  less  per  day.  That  is,  their  daily  leisure 
would  be  increased  by  so  much.  We  should  then  have,  at  any 
rate,  a  seven-hours'  day,  probably  even  a  five-hours'  day,  and 
what  this  would  mean  for  the  progress  of  mankind  is  scarcely 
conceivable.  By  working  harder  than  formerly,  which  would 
result  in  still  further  saving,  these  comparatively  brief  work- 
ing hours  could  be  confined  to  a  single  shift;  and  if  a  man 
worked  in  the  morning,  then  he  would  have  the  rest  of  his  time 
for  physical  and  mental  recreation  and  improvement. 

These  reflections  are  amply  sufficient  to  show  how  diametric 
cally  opposed  to  man's  material  and  intellectual  interests  are 
the  consequences  of  a  state  of  war  prevailing  in  Europe. 
War  forces  mankind  to  do  what  is  unnatural,  and  fighting 
like  animals  perpetuates  the  animal  state  in  man,  and  makes 
it  impossible  for  him  to  develop  along  specifically  human 
lines. 

This  means  that  man's  position  in  nature  is  not  properly  ap- 
preciated. We  know  how  much  of  the  animal  still  lurks  in  us, 
and  for  this  very  reason  we  ought  daily  and  hourly  to  assert 
our  human  qualities.  The  dying  Pascal  understood  life  when 
he  wrote,  during  the  years  of  his  long  decline :  "II  est  dan- 
gereux  de  trop  faire  voir  a  I'homme  combien  il  est  egal  aux 
betes,  sans  lui  montrer  sa  grandeur.  II  est  encore  dangereux 
de  lui  faire  trop  voir  sa  grandeur  sans  sa  bassesse.    II  est  en- 


THE  CHOSEN  PEOPLE  147 

core  plus  dangereux  de  lui  laisser  ignorer  1  'un  et  1  'autre ;  mais 
il  est  tres  avantageux  de  lui  representer  Tun  et  I'autre."  ^ 

Any  one  who  has  understood  this  wonderfully  profound 
reflection  wili  feel  it  onlj  natural  and  logical  that  in  another 
passage  (VI,  9)  Pascal  should  describe  war  as  a  ridiculous  out- 
rage on  the  conception  of  humanity. 

2. — NATIONAL  EXPANSION    OR   COLONIZATION  ^ 

§  55. — Necessity  for  and  Advantages  of  Colonies 

When  we  speak  of  colonization  we  usually  do  not  mean  the 
same  thing  as  occupation.  When  it  is  desired  to  spare  a  peo- 
ple, then,  in  accordance  with  present-day  custom,  their  lands 
are  occupied,  A  colony,  on  the  contrary,  is  at  any  rate  so  far 
new  territory  that  no  one  minds  exterminating  the  inhabi- 
tants, or  else  allowing  them  to  live  only  in  a  state  of  inferior- 
ity, such  as  slavery,  for  instance.  This  latter  kind  of  coloniza- 
tion was  recently  proposed  by  Herr  Delbriick,  in  "Das  afri- 
kanische  Indien,"  This  he  did  because,  owing  to  the  heavy 
drop  in  the  German  birth-rate,  there  seemed  no  prospect  of 
any  territories  outside  Germany  being  settled  by  a  popula- 
tion of  German  race.  We  are  here  once  more  confronted  with 
the  primeval  law  of  growth.  Everything  tends  to  grow,  even 
every  community,  and  if  it  can  no  longer  do  so  by  natural 
means,  it  attempts  to  do  so  by  unnatural  means. 

Formerly,  when  princes  alone  represented  a  state,  lands 

'  Blaise  I'ascal,  "Pensees,"  Part  I,  7. 

2  In  a  courageous  book  on  colonies  and  colonization  ("Der  englisehe 
(U'danke  in  Dcutscliland.  Zur  Abwelir  des  Imperialismus,"  Reinhardt: 
.Muiiitli,  1915),  the  last  publication  of  Ernst  Miiller-Holm,  there  are 
many  noteworthy  and  tlierefore  "inopportune"  sayings;  but  unfortu- 
nately 1  was  prevented  from  consulting  it.  1  agree  with  everything 
jMiiller-Holm  says  about  English  and  Cierman  colonizing  imperialism, 
only  It  seems  to  me  that  the  great  change  which  has  come  about  in  the 
la>t  hundred  years  in  tiie  relations  between  England  and  her  colonies 
has  not  been  autriciently  taken  into  account.  They  were  once  colonies 
to  be  exploited  for  imperialistic  purposes,  but  now  they  are  colonies 
ttttaihed  to  the  mother  country  by  bonds  of  sympathy.  Later  on  i 
bhall   letei    to  this  at  greater   length 


148  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

were  acquired  by  inheritance,  purchase,  or  marriage,  and  oc- 
casionally also  by  war,  all  which  was  consistent  with  the  con- 
ditions of  law  and  order  then  prevailing.  Nowadays  a  nation 
as  such  is  assumed  to  be  entitled  to  an  independent  existence 
and  likewise  to  self -representation.  Accordingly  this  tend- 
ency to  grow  finds  expression  in  an  endeavor  to  make  nations 
grow.  Strivings  after  national  expansion,  however,  are  quite 
as  indefinite  as  the  conception  of  a  nation.  In  the  main  a  na- 
tion is  held  together  by  community  of  frontiers,  race,  civiliza- 
tion, and  language,  and  because  all  its  members  recognize  the 
same  frontiers.  Now,  every  person 's  main  desire  will  be  either 
for  increased  population,  extension  of  the  national  language, 
improved  civilization,  or  enlarged  frontiers,  according  to  which 
of  these  he  considers  most  important. 

It  is  now  almost  generally  believed  that  all  these  require- 
ments can  be  satisfied  by  the  acquisition  of  colonies.  They 
would  extend  the  country's  frontiers,  and  afford  room  for 
more  population;  and  even  if  the  latter  were  not  there,  it 
would  nevertheless  be  attracted  eventually  by  the  free  space 
afforded  by  colony.  The  national  language  would  be  spoken 
over  a  wider  extent  of  territory,  and,  as  is  proved  by  the  ex- 
ample of  America,  a  nation  cannot  fail  to  profit  by  the  wider 
outlook  which  must  result  from  its  having  colonial  possessions. 

Undoubtedly  there  is  much  truth  in  these  views.^  It  is 
easy  to  understand  why  every  nation  should  wish  to  acquire 
new  lands  for  settlement,  and  it  is  well  that  this  should  be 
so.  After  all,  mankind  can  progress  only  by  means  of  the 
selfish,  but  justifiable,  desire  to  be  perhaps  not  sole  victor  in 
the  struggle  for  world-domination,  but,  at  any  rate,  to  take 
part  in  this  struggle  with  some  prospect  of  success.  Thus  each 
nation  hopes  that  a  good  deal  of  its  own  national  civilization 
will  be  preserved,  even  if  all  nations  should  ultimately  be 
absorbed  into  one  universal  nation. 

Since  this  struggle  will  be  virtually  confined  to  civilizations, 
numbers  will  be  of  importance,  as,  for  instance,  in  the  strug- 

iCf.   Chapter   VIII,  4  and   X. 


THE  CHOSEN  PEOPLE  149 

gle  for  lan^age-mastery.  Whoever  wishes  to  have  any  claim 
even  to  enter  the  lists  must  be  able  to  throw  a  large  number 
of  fellow-countrymen  into  the  balance.  And  as  the  Germans 
are  only  one  hundredth  part  of  mankind  and  can  claim  only 
three  thousandths  of  the  earth  as  their  own,  they  must  clearly 
try  to  expand. 

Now,  even  those  who  are  fully  aware  that  territorial  an- 
nexation is  injurious  to  their  own  nationality  because  of  the 
admixture  of  foreign  elements  still  believe  that  that  national- 
ity would  be  extended  by  colonization.  Most  colonies,  it  is 
true,  were  acquired  for  other  reasons;  and  Roscher,^  in  his 
famous  division  of  colonies  into  **  Conquistador,  mercantile, 
agrarian,  and  plantation  colonies,"  never  once  mentions  this 
reason  for  colonization.  But  it  is  no  less  true  that  certain 
colonies,  particularly  in  America,  Australia,  and  South  Africa, 
have  conduced  to  the  spread  of  European  races,  even  if  they 
may  not  have  been  originally  founded  for  this  purpose.  On 
the  other  hand,  other  European  colonies,  of  which  I  inten- 
tionally refrain  from  citing  any  instances,  have  conduced  to 
the  spread  of  ^Mongol  races. 

Despite  all  these  events  of  the  past,  however,  every  nation 
can  and  ought  to  colonize  for  the  sake  of  its  own  expansion; 
and  all  the  territory  in  Europe  being  occupied,  we  must  at- 
tempt to  get  possession  of  colonies  in  foreign  countries.  All 
this  is  so  obvious  as  to  need  no  insisting  upon. 

§  56. — Colonial  Possessions  and  Colonial  Domination 

The  only  question  is  whether  coyiquering  a  colony  is  the  best 
way  to  get  possession  of  it.  As  Jaures  once  pointed  out,  co- 
lonial possessions  and  colonial  ride  must  not  be  identified, 
"since  it  is  quite  possible  to  possess  a  colony  in  which  we  do 
not  rule,  and  vice  versa. ' '  -' 

1  Rosc'her  imd  Janasch,  "Kolonialpolitik  und  Auawanderung" 
("Emifnation  and  Colonial  Policy")  :   Leipsie,  1895. 

2.1aur?9,  in  reporting  on  the  French  colonial  estimates  in  1911. 
"Journal  officiel"  of  July  2,  1911. 


150  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  AVAR 

This  distinction  between  possession  and  governance  is  self- 
evident  to  any  one  personally  acquainted  with  colonies.  It  is 
most  apparent  in  farther  India,  in  that  border  territory  for 
which  the  white  and  Mongol  races  are  always  contending.  The 
Malayans  were  once  owners  and  rulers  here ;  then  came  the 
white  man,  anxious  to  turn  the  country  to  good  account.  But 
as  neither  he  nor  the  idle  Malayans  would  work,  they  were 
forced  to  introduce  Chinese  coolies.  Since  then  there  has  been 
a  struggle  in  which  Europeans,  in  their  love  of  easily  earned 
profits,  let  loose  Chinese  expansion,  and  thus  raised  up  a 
mighty  enemy  unto  themselves. 

Frenchmen,  Englishmen,  and  Dutchmen  strive  for  the  mas- 
tery, and  meantime  the  Chinaman  is  working  his  way  grad- 
ually up  from  coolie  into  proprietor.  Indo-China  still  belongs 
to  the  French,  but  the  rice-mills,  which  are  the  wealth  of  the 
country,  belong  to  the  Chinese.  The  Straits  Settlements  are 
British  colonies,  but  in  Singapore  the  Chinaman  is  even  now 
all-powerful;  and  whenever  it  is  desired  to  build  English 
schools  there,  it  is  the  Chinese  who  have  to  give  the  money 
needed,  and  consequently  it  is  they  who  really  decide  matters. 
Over  the  East  Indian  archipelago  the  Dutch  flag  flies,  and 
the  Chinaman  is  sometimes  even  now  cruelly  and  inhumanly 
treated,  but  his  influence  is  growing. 

I  myself  witnessed  an  incident  there  which  is  characteristic. 
A  Chinaman  and  a  Dutchman  wanted  to  found  a  company. 
To  the  haughty  Dutchman  the  Chinaman  appeared  a  negligi- 
ble quantity,  owing  to  the  humble  position  conferred  on  him  by 
the  local  legislation.  The  Chinaman  likewise  humbly  opined 
that  he  would  never  venture  to  differ  from  his  lofty  partner; 
but  he  submitted,  as  even  he  must  keep  control  of  his  own 
money,  he  would  beg  that  a  clause  might  be  inserted  in  the 
agreement  to  the  effect  that  "your  worship  shall  have  no  say 
whatever  in  the  company's  affairs."  The  Dutch  judge  as- 
suredly had  not  a  light  heart  when  presiding  over  the  con- 
elusion  of  the  agreement,  for  in  Holland  the  Chinese  are 
hated ;  but  there  was  probably  no  choice,  for  his  fellow-eoun- 


THE  CHOSEN  PEOPLE  151 

tryman  was  merely  a  "his  worship"  and  the  Chinaman  the 
"humble  proprietor."  In  the  East  Indian  archipelago  the 
Chinese  are  beginning  to  be  a  nation,  and  the  Europeans  are 
now  merelj"  the  "ruling  caste." 

Not  even  England  owns  any  colony  because  she  one  day 
hoisted  the  Union  Jack  over  it,  but  merely  because  people 
live  there  whose  feelings  and  language  are  English.  The 
British  cro\Mi  can  scarcely  be  said  now  to  own  the  British 
colonies,  but  at  most  nominally  to  rule  them.  In  the  hearts 
of  her  colonists,  however,  England  lives,  and  likewise  the 
British  conception  of  a  world-wide  empire. 

Only  those  capable  of  tenaciously  asserting  their  national 
characteristics  acquire  colonies,  and  only  those  who  know  how 
to  Avin  friends  by  just  dealings  can  keep  colonies.  England 
once  made  a  mistake  in  this  respect,  and  by  her  unjust  treat- 
ment of  New  York  and  Boston  she  lost  the  United  States.  She 
has  now  learned  better,  and  the  very  great  majority  of  the 
Boers  who,  hardly  ten  3'ears  ago,  were  conquered  by  ex- 
tremely brutal  methods  now  believe  in  the  justice  of  England. 
For  this  reason  and  not  because  of  any  sort  of  compulsion, 
which  in  any  case  England  could  not  exercise,  are  these  colon- 
ies now  helping  the  mother-country ;  and  America,  who  showed 
her  fist  to  the  Englishman  as  a  ruler,  now  that  her  hroiher  is 
in  distress,  is  helping  him  more  and  perhaps  better  than  if 
England  were  governing  the  United  States.^ 

Despite  the  Star-Spangled  Banner  flying  over  "Washington, 
America  is  a  British  colony  in  the  true  sense  of  the  word. 
America  is  a  British  possession  because  in  America  also  the 
Anglo-Saxon  idea  lives.  It  is  not  fair  to  say  that  it  is  all  due 
to  Yankee  love  of  money-making,  although  this  may  have 
something  to  do  with  it.  But  love  of  money-making  is  every- 
where. The  main  point  is  whether  the  Americans  wish  to 
speculate  in  German  or  in  English  stocks;  and  here  unques- 
tionably sentimental  and  ideal  considerations  come  into  play. 

1  It  must  be  rememhered  that  these  words  wore  written  before 
America    declared    war    on    Germany. — Translator. 


152  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

Whoever  possesses  the  art  of  colonizing,  whoever  tenaciously 
clings  to  the  habits  and  customs  of  the  homeland,  has  colonies, 
whether  he  incidentally  acquires  them,  as  England  has  done, 
or  whether,  like  China,  he  merelj^  conquers  them  by  his  labor. 
These  two  instances  afford  admirable  proof  that  colonies  de- 
pend only  upon  national  character,  and  not  on  outward  circum- 
stances. 

If  colonies  need  not  necessarily  be  acquired  by  force,  what  is 
necessary  is  to  have  immigrants  who  do  not  go  under  in  a 
foreign  nation,  and  a  form  of  civilization  to  which  a  foreign 
nation  becomes  attached.  If,  however,  a  people  does  not  pos- 
sess this  national  tenacity,  it  is  useless  for  it  to  rule  over  a 
foreign  people  or  foreign  colonies.  Despite  everything,  they 
would  still  remain  foreign  possessions.  If,  for  example,  the 
Germans  could  colonize  better  than  the  British,  they  would  not 
first  need  to  deprive  England  of  her  colonies ;  they  would  be- 
come German  without  that,  even  under  the  Union  Jack. 

It  is  therefore  absolutely  useless  conquering  a  colony  by  war. 
If  the  arm}^  of  a  European  military"  state  succeeded  in  occu- 
pying the  United  States  of  America,  this  would  not  produce 
much  effect  unless  the  entire  mode  of  life  and  work  and  the 
laws  and  rights  there  were  altered.  But  if  all  these  were 
remodeled  in  accordance  with  the  principles  of  a  military  state, 
then  the  inhabitants  of  this  state  would  quite  naturally  cease 
emigrating  thither,  since  the  reason  why  they  emigrated  was 
just  so  as  to  be  able  to  enjoy  American  liberty.  Thus  it  might 
well  happen  that  the  only  result  of  the  military  occupation  of 
America  by  a  European  military  power  would  be  that  this 
country's  influence  in  America  decreased. 

It  is  not  surprising  that  the  colonies  should  afford  the  clear- 
est proof  of  how  little  can  be  decided  by  force  of  arms.  The 
competition  of  the  different  countries  anxious  to  settle  on  land 
is  necessarily  freer  in  colonies  than  in  old  countries ;  and,  more- 
over, the  victory  is  to  the  people  which  proves  the  fittest,  quick- 
est, and  most  adaptable  in  the  struggle  for  existence.  In 
short,  whoever  wants  to  know  how  genuine  victories  are  won, 


THE  CHOSEN  PEOPLE  153 

should  go  and  visit  colonies,  where  he  may  learn  something 
which  will  be  useful  to  him  even  in  the  mother-country. 

Let  every  German  who  earnestly  desires  the  expansion  of 
his  own  nationality  ask  himself  and  answer  the  following  ques- 
tions: 

1.  Why  did  not  the  Boers  help  Germany? 

2.  Why  do  the  majority  of  German  emigrants  go  to  America 
and  to  British  colonies  and  not  to  German  colonies? 

3.  Why  has  German  trade  become  so  large  in  all  British 
colonies  and  not  in  a  single  German  colony?  And  why  has 
it  even  become  large  in  American  colonies,  despite  the  fact 
that  some  of  the  latter  are  younger  than  German  colonies  ? 

4.  Why  have  the  people  of  Lorraine  proved  more  loyal  i:o 
Germany  in  this  war  than  the  Alsatians,  despite  the  fact  that 
Lorraine  contains  a  greater  admixture  of  French  elements, 
and  despite  their  having  been  far  more  systematically  "Ger- 
manized" than  the  people  of  Lorraine? 

5.  Why  are  the  Austrian  Poles  more  loyal  than  those  of 
Prussia  ?    And  why  did  so  many  Austrian  Czechs  fail  us  ? 

Any  one  once  grasping  the  reasons  for  these  facts  will  realize 
that  national  ideas  are  most  deeply  ingrained  where  they  are 
most  free  from  any  idea  of  force,  and  have  no  connection  with 
anything  but  civilization ;  that  is  to  say,  where  the  fight  is 
carried  on  with  weapons  of  life  and  not  of  death. 

3. — WEAPONS  OF   LIFE  AND   WEAPONS  OF   DEATH 

§  57. — The  Victor's  Empty  Laurels 

Deep  down  in  the  human  mind  a  notion  seems  always  to 
have  lurked  that  not  only  is  right  often  on  the  side  of  the 
vanquished,  but  also  that  it  is  they  who  mostly  benefit  from 
the  fight.  It  is,  to  say  the  least,  astonishing  that  the  legend  of 
Rome  as  ruler  of  the  world  did  not  father  itself  upon  a  victori- 
ous people,  but  upon  the  Trojans,  the  most  famous  of  all  van- 
quished peoples.  The  onlj-  inhabitant  of  the  populous  city  of 
Ilion  to  escape  the  murderous  sword  of  the  Greeks  was  ^Eneas 


154  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

(according  to  others,  Antenor  as  well),  but  the  father  avenged 
this  one  and  only  descendant,  and  victorious  Greece  became 
a  province  of  the  sons  of  the  conquered  sons  of  Troy. 

Not  many  such  legends,  of  which  the  moral  is  generally 
that  an  unjust  conqueror  never  enjoys  the  fruits  of  his  vio- 
lence, can  be  cited.  Even  the  sober  Montesquieu,  however, 
wrote  only  one  chapter  concerning  the  "Advantages  Accruing 
to  the  Vanquished"  (Quelques  avantages  du  peuple  cojrquis)  ^ 
and  none  about  the  advantages  accruing  to  the  victor,  which 
even  modern  war  lovers  seem  to  think  right,  at  any  rate, 
as  far  as  the  past  is  concerned.  Thus  Steinmetz  ^  calls  at- 
tention to  the  fact  that  Alexander's  empire  conferred  the 
benefits  of  Greek  civilization  on  the  races  which  it  subjugated, 
and  that  in  the  long  run  all  that  the  victorious  Roman  Empire 
did  was  to  enable  the  conquered  Jews  to  spread  their  religion. 
Karl  von  Stengel  ^  likewise  refers  to  the  benefits  accruing  to 
Prussia  from  her  defeats  in  1806  and  to  France  from  her  de- 
feat in  1870. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  if  any  one  derives  far-reaching  benefits 
from  war,  then  it  is  the  vanciuished.  True,  there  is  a  prevail- 
ing notion  that  war  is  only  a  bad  business  for  the  loser.  But 
this  is,  at  any  rate,  accounted  for  in  part  by  the  different 
way  in  which  war  affects  victor  and  vanquished.  Every  na- 
tion worth  anything  at  all,  after  losing  a  war  has  always  re- 
stricted its  consumption  of  luxuries,  whereas  the  victorious 
nation,  thinking  how  much  it  has  gained  by  the  war,  has  con- 
sidered no  such  restraint  necessary,  and  consequently  become 
overbearing  and  extravagant. 

War  brings  in  its  train  a  certain  "superb  disdain  of  life." 
Whoever  must  daily  risk  his  life  must  not  take  things  too 
seriously.  Now,  if  the  campaign  ends  gloriously,  there  is  not 
that  moral  shock  which  speedily  forces  a  conquered  people 

1  Montesquieu :     "De  I'esprit  des  lois,"  1748.     Livre  X,  Chapitre  TV. 

2  Dr.  S.  Rudolf  Steinmetz,  "Die  Philosophie  des  Krieges"  ("The 
Philosophy  of  War"),  1907.     Page  40.     Barth,  Leipsic. 

3  Stengel,  "Weltstaat  und  Friedensproblem"  ("World-Wide  Empires 
and  the  Problem  of  Peace")    1909.     Pp.   108  and   112. 


THE  CHOSEN  PEOPLE  155 

to  abandon  the  martial  habits  it  has  acquired  in  war.  Thus 
the  victor,  with  his  feeling  of  superiority,  imagines  that  he  can 
go  on  not  taking  matters  too  seriously  even  under  the  altered 
conditions  of  peace. 

After  all,  war  is  a  business  like  any  other,  and  it  is  com- 
paratively immaterial  that  it  should  be  '* cruel  and  violent." 
Now,  whoever  learns  one  business  forgets  the  others,  A  white 
man  who  has  been  accustomed  to  be  treated  somewhat  as  a 
superior  being  for  a  time  in  the  tropics  is  often  years  before 
being  able  to  feel  at  ease  again  in  his  native  land.  Any  one 
who  has  played  at  being  master,  even  for  only  a  few  days, 
fights  shy  of  being  a  ser\'ant  again;  and  any  one  who  has 
played  at  soldiers  for  a  time  becomes  a  soldier. 

If  a  nation  is  often  at  war,  it  becomes  warlike,  and  unlearns 
its  peaceful  occupations.  War,  however,  cannot  do  more  than 
protect  civilization,  which  must  be  built  up  on  peace ;  and 
hence  a  time  comes  sooner  or  later  to  all  martial  peoples  when 
they  have  nothing  left  to  protect.  All  they  can  then  do  is  to 
collapse.  Usually  a  stronger  nation  has  meantime  appeared  to 
rob  them  of  everything  which  they  once  stole  from  others; 
but  this  need  not  happen,  for  a  victorious  nation  perishes  of 
internal  decay  bred  of  trust  in  its  own  victorious  armies. 
Even  the  Psalmist  realized  this,  and  at  a  time  when  his  sacred 
books  were  still  full  of  war  and  rumors  of  war.  In  the  sixty- 
eighth  Psalm  he  rejoices  that  ^'dissipatae  gentes,  quae 
bella  volunt" — "he  hath  scattered  the  people  that  delight  in 
war." 

Therefore  the  following  sentence.  Even  more  striking  are 
the  words  written  by  the  Chinese  philosopher  Lao-tsze  two 
thousand  five  hundred  years  ago.  This  atheistical  founder  of 
a  religion  says,  "  Is  a  man  strongly  armed ;  then  shall  he  not 
win."  By  this  he  means  what  he  elsewhere  explicitly  states, 
that  as  with  plants,  so  it  is  with  human  weapons.  Hard  wood 
is  dead,  but  the  young  soft  shoots  at  the  top  of  the  tree  and  at 
its  roots  are  alive.  Now,  it  is  by  means  of  these  living  growths 
that  the  plant  makes  headway ;  by  their  means  it  spreads,  pro- 


156  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

cures  sustenance;  grows,  and  perfects  itself.  Here  already 
we  have  the  natural  scientist's  point  of  view  about  war. 

So  it  is  with  man.  What  this  virtually  means  was  once  ex- 
plained with  startling  plainness  by  the  shrewd  Li  Hung 
Chang  to  General  Waldersee,  who  wondered  how  the  Chinese 
could  look  on  so  calmly  while  European  troops  were  killing 
thousands,  perhaps  millions,  of  their  compatriots.  But  Li 
opined  that  this  mattered  comparatively  little.  Once  upon  a 
time,  he  said,  the  Tatars  (Mongols)  came,  not  with  cannon 
and  bayonet,  but  with  what  were  then  modern  weapons,  "bows 
and  arrows."  The  Tatars  always  won,  and  they,  too,  slew 
millions  of  Chinese ;  indeed,  the  Chinese  had  never  won  a  sin- 
gle battle,  "But,"  continued  the  disciple  of  Lao-tsze,  smiling, 
"where  are  the  Tatars  now?" 

Yes,  where  are  they  ?  China  had  no  powerful  weapons  capa- 
ble of  deciding  a  single  battle  on  the  battle-tleld,  but  she  did 
have  those  "living  weapons"  wherewith  far  more  terrible  and 
cruel  fights  are  won,  wherewith  the  fate  of  nations  is  sealed, 
and  whereof  we  shall  have  more  to  say  anon. 

§  58. — The  Decay  of  World-Wide  Empires 

The  slightest  consideration  of  history,  however  superficial, 
confirms  the  fact  that  never  has  a  nation  reaped  anj'  fruits 
from  its  victories.  Luther  clothed  the  same  thought  in  the 
fine  line: 

"Mit  unsrer  Maeht  ist  nichts  getan"  ("Our  power  avail- 
eth  naught"),  and  elsewhere  he  quotes  Hannibal  as  an  instance 
of  this ;  for  despite  the  Battle  of  Cannas,  perhaps  the  most  glo- 
rious in  the  history  of  the  whole  world,  he  afterward  came  to 
a  shameful  end.  Where  are  the  empires  of  the  unconquered 
Alexander  and  the  unconquered  Tamerlane?  Attila,  the 
scourge  of  God,  was  merely  an  episode,  like  Pugatschew,  who 
is  already  half  forgotten,  and  who  had  no  influence  whatever 
on  the  history  of  the  world.  What  did  it  avail  Charles  XII 
to  have  conquered  Russia,  Denmark,  and  Poland?  Or  Na- 
poleon to  have  conquered  Europe?     Of  what  use  were  the 


THE  CHOSEN  PEOPLE  157 

hecatombs  of  dead  slain  by  order  of  Dsehingkiskahn,  and  the 
countless  victims  of  the  crusades?  Or  what  was  the  result  of 
the  irresistible  onrush  of  the  victorious  Arab  hordes  who  once 
overflowed  all  the  Mediterranean  countries?  Even  fairly 
lasting  conquests  were  in  the  end  always  in  vain.  The  vast  em- 
pires of  the  East,  built  up  on  war  and  oppression,  endured 
but  for  a  day  and  then  crumbled  to  pieces,  and  those  of  the 
West  likewise  perished. 

The  huge  Spanish  Empire,  on  which,  in  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury, the  sun  never  s^t,  has  degenerated  into  a  second-rate 
power.  At  the  beginning  of  the  succeeding  century  the  Dutch 
States-(ieneral  were  the  first  sea-power  in  the  world;  but  only 
a  few  years  after  Admiral  de  Ruyter  had  again  sailed  vic- 
toriously up  the  Thames  with  his  fleet,  Holland  was  obliged 
to  secede.  Without  force  of  arms,  England  won,  owing  to  her 
geographical  position,  her  commercial  system,  and  her  ca- 
pacity for  adapting  herself  to  modern  conditions;  and  al- 
though she  was  Holland's  ally  and  close  personal  ties  subsisted 
between  the  two  countries,  for  William  of  Orange,  King  of 
England,  was  Statthalter  of  the  Netherlands,  nevertheless  she 
forced  Holland  out  of  her  position  as  mistress  of  the  seas. 
At  file  end  of  the  seventeenth  century  Sweden,  after  the  vic- 
tories of  Uustavus  Adolphus  and  Charles  XII,  was  admittedly 
one  of  the  foremost  great  powei's;  but  by  the  time  of  the  Revo- 
lution she  had  already  sunk  to  the  level  of  a  small,  insignifi- 
cant country.  After  all,  Holland's  imval  and  Sweden's  ter- 
ritorial ascendency  were  merely  artificial  constructions,  which 
did  not  owe  their  existence  to  any  of  the  true  elements  of 
power.  They  must  have,  and  perhaps  it  should  be  said  that 
they  ought  to  have,  collapsed,  which  shows  the  folly  of  a  na- 
tion's straining  itself  to  the  utmost  in  war  and  thus  wasting 
its  strength. 

Further  analogies  might  be  drawn  from  Spain,  Portugal 
and  Venice,  whose  colonial  empires  or,  rather,  empires  made 
up  of  their  customers,  increased  out  of  all  proportion  to  the 
strength  necessary  to  hold  them  together.     Hence  Machiavelli 's 


158  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

apparently  paradoxical  saying  that  Venice  had  never  been 
more  powerful  than  when  she  did  not  possess  an  inch  of  land 
on  the  Italian  peninsula.  And  what  has  it  profited  France 
or  Sweden  to  have  been  in  occupation  of  German  territory? 
Or  what  has  it  profited  Germany  to  have  occupied  Italian  or 
Polish  territory? 

Shakspere's  historical  plays  and  particularly  a  national 
epic  such  as  ''Henry  V"  cannot  be  read  now  without  a  certain 
feeling  of  pensive  melancholy.  In  Shakspere's  time  Henry 
V  was  "the  mirror  of  all  Christian  kings,"  and  Agincourt 
"the  greatest  day  in  English  history."  It  was  symptomatic 
for  the  history  of  the  world  that  ten  thousand  citizen  archers 
should  have  shot  to  pieces  the  almost  five  times  greater 
knightly  army  of  the  Constable  of  France.  But  what  were  the 
practical  results  of  France's  brown  earth  having  drunk  the 
red  blood  of  eighteen  thousand  of  her  best  sons?  For  two 
years  England  ruled  over  France,  and  it  was  just  at  this  time 
that  the  House  of  Burgundy,  under  John  sans  peur  and 
Philip  the  Good,  attained  the  zenith  of  its  power.  Fourteen 
years  after  Agincourt  the  ]\Iaid  of  Orleans  freed  and  crowned 
her  king,  and  everything  was  once  more  as  of  old,  save  that 
oceans  of  blood  had  been  senselessly  shed — senselessly  and, 
after  all,  ingloriously,  too,  for  who  now  ever  thinks  of  Agin- 
court and  the  king  who  once  won  a  battle  there? 

§  59. — The  Economic  Effects  of  War 

But  even  leaving  out  of  count  a  country's  power  and  in- 
fluence abroad,  and  considering  only  its  internal  conditions, 
we  nevertheless  find  that  it  is  the  vanquished  rather  than  the 
victor  who  comes  off  best.  War  has  no  beneficial  effects  on 
national  well-being.  It  neither  raises  a  nation's  standard  of 
civilization  nor  uplifts  national  sentiment.  This  of  course 
can  be  better  observed  in  modern  wars,  because  the  direct 
effects  of  war  are  here  easier  to  survey. 

As  I  have  already  hinted,  the  tendency  of  trade  after  a  war 
is  so  to  develop  that,  although  conditions  may  be  almost  equally 


THE  CHOSEN  PEOPLE  159 

unfavorable  for  both  combatants,  yet  it  is  almost  alwaj's  the 
victor  alone  who  has  to  endure  economic  depression,  whereas 
in  the  country  of  the  vanquished  a  period  of  commercial  pros- 
perity usually  sets  in.  Most  instructive  for  Germany  in  this 
respect  are  probably  the  results  of  the  Franco-Prussian  War, 
since  which  time  economic  conditions  generally  in  France, 
now  freed  from  the  demoralizing  rule  of  the  empire,  have 
been  noticeably  prospering.  All  who  know  France  have  at- 
tributed this  to  the  fact  that,  after  being  invaded,  she.  who 
before  1870  thought  she,  too,  might  attempt  to  domineer  over 
the  whole  world,  learned  to  work  again. 

In  Germany,  on  the  other  hand,  the  huge  war  indemnity 
made  every  one  imagine  that  all  was  going  on  very  prosper- 
ously, until  the  so-called  "boom"  came  about  in  1872.'  A 
great  deal  more  champagne  was  drunk,  and  traces  of  this 
period  are  even  now  observable  in  the  showy  and  tasteless  deco- 
ration of  the  houses,  furniture,  etc.,  of  the  period. 

All  this  extravagance,  which  had  nothing  substantial  be- 
hind it.  led  to  an  excessive  desire  for  commercial  expansion. 
Hence  the  great  "smash"  and  the  ruin  of  thousands  of  peo- 
ple. Even  Bismarck  said  in  the  Reichstag,  on  May  9,  1872, 
"We  know  that  France  is  bearing  the  difficult  commercial 
conditions  at  present  prevailing  in  the  civilized  world  better 
than  we  are;  and  that  her  budget  has  increased  by  a  million 
and  a  half,  a  sum  not  raised  by  a  loan ;  and  we  see  that  her 
resources  are  better  than  ours,  and  that,  in  short,  in  France 
there  is  less  complaining  about  hard  times." 

As  a  result  of  the  commercial  depression,  there  was  an  enor- 
mous increase  in  emigration  from  Prussia.  Before  1866  this 
amounted  on  an  average  to  about  40,000  annually,  but  in 
1873  it  had  reached  about  150,000.  This  immense  waste  of 
human  material  of  course  alone  represents  a  capital  very, 
very  much  larger  than  all  the  thousands  of  millions  received 
from  France. 

What,  therefore,  did  Prussia  gain  by  her  victory  or  from 

1  "Die  Criinderzeit"   it   is   called:    the   "business   founding  time." 


160 


THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 


her  war  indemnities  or  from  the  commercial  treaty  in  her 
favor?  Merely  to  show  what  I  mean  and  without  laying  any 
undue  stress  upon  this  single  instance,  I  give  here  the 
following  diagram,  the  curved  line  in  which  indicates  the 
number  of  vessels  belonging  to  the  Saxon-Bohemian  Steamship 
Company.  The  influence,  small  though  it  be,  of  the  disturb- 
ances which  led  to  the  war  of  1859  is  clearly  traceable,  as  also 
are  the  after  effects  of  1866  and  1870-71.  The  after  effects 
af  1866  were  of  course  considerably  felt  by  such'  a  company 
as  this. 


Fig.  3. 


20 


10 


l!Ships_ 


/  fifi 


« 

/ 


/ 


-p' 


L.  I  I  j  I  I  I  f  I  I  I  n  1  I  I  I  I  I  I 
1850  60 


I  I  1  I  I  I  I  I 


70 


80 


Number  of  vessels  owned  by  the  Saxon-Bohemian  Steamship  Company 
between  18oU  and  ISSU 


I  should  like  to  add  that  the  number  of  steamers  rose  from 
three  to  seventeen — that  is,  by  fourteen — in  the  lifteeu  years 
between  1850  to  1865;  while  in  the  next  tifteeu  years  (1865- 
80)  their  number  rose  only  to  twenty, —  that  is,  by  three, — 
which  in  absolute  numbers  is  a  nearly  five-tim£s-smaller  in- 
crease. In  the  years  of  peace,  therefore,  the  increase  was 
almost  five  hundred  per  cent.,  while  in  the  ensuing  period,  of 
equal  length,  but  broken  by  wars,  it  was  only  eighteen  per 
cent. 

The  following  diagram,  the  curved  line  in  w^hiich  indicates 


THE  CHOSEN  PEOPLE 


161 


the  increase  in  the  population  of  Berlin,  should  likewise  prove 
interesting.^ 


5%Yea 

Hy  ln( 

rease 

/h 

• 

A 

H 

WaKof 

\ 

■A 

f 

.  \ .. 

Wv/it 

1800  1850  1900 

Increase  in  the  population  of  Berlin  in  the  nineteenth  century. 

It  is  impossible  to  calculate  all  the  economic  advantages 
and  disadvantages  of  a  war,  but  there  is  one  point  to  which  I 
wish  to  draw  attention.  The  surest  indication  of  a  country's 
industrial  development  is  probably  the  increase  in  the  number 
of  its  steam-engines.  Now,  if  we  consider  the  multiplication 
of  steam  engines  in  the  period  1860-70  as  compared  with  the 
decade  1870-80,  we  shall  arrive  at  the  following  diagram, 
which  throws  the  effects  of  war  into  strong  relief:  - 


Name  of  Country. 

Increase  or  Decrease  in  num- 
ber of  Steam-engines  used 

Germany     

Austria  and  Belgium   

France  and  America 

England     

— 30  per  cent. 

— 20  per  cent. 

0  per  cent. 

15   per  cent. 

It  is  obvious  that  the  heaviest  decrease  occurred  in  the 
victorious  Germany,  whereas  vanciuished  France  at  all  events 
maintained  her  former  standard.  The  country  which  comes 
out  best,  however,  is  England,  the  smiling  onlooker  who  took 
no  part  in  the  game. 

1  The  figures  are  based  on  the  Festival  Publication  of  the  Royal 
Statistical   Office   of   Prussia   for    1905. 

2  Tlie  figures  are  taken  from  an  article  by  K.  Tli.  von  Heigel  and 
W.  Hausenstein  on  "Das  Zeitalter  dcr  nationalen  Einigung"  ("The 
Period  of  National  I'nity").  to  be  found  in  J.  von  Pflugk-Hartung's 
"VVeltgeschichte"    ("History  of  the  World"),  Vol.  VI,  p.  353. 


162 


THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 


We  are  altogether  far  too  often  deceived  by  the  fact  that 
diagrams  frequently  show  how  this,  that,  or  the  other  national 
source  of  wealth  has  increased  in  Germany  since  1870;  and 
we  forget  that  it  generally  increased  still  more  before  1870. 
What  makes  such  comparisons  more  difficult  is  that  before 
this  year  the  statistics  of  all  the  ditferent  component  states 
in  Germany  were  issued  separately",  whereas  after  1870  we 
have  generally  only  the  statistics  for  the  whole  German 
Empire.  I  have  gone  through  numbers  of  reports  from 
chambers  of  commerce  and  commercial  undertakings,  and  vir- 
tually always  found  that  the  increase  in  their  prosperity  re- 
corded before  1870  was  greater  than  that  recorded  after  this 
year.  To  go  all  through  this  material,  however,  would  greatly 
exceed  the  limits  of  this  volume,  and  indeed  it  would  require 
to  be  dealt  with  separately. 

Even  if  we  review  the  whole  export  and  import  trade  of 
the  world,  we  arrive  at  the  same  result.  In  the  thirty  years 
between  1870  and  1902,  the  world's  total  trade  increased  from 
about  £2,470,000,000  to  about  £4,710,000,000;  that  is,  by 
eighty-seven  per  cent.  Mainly  owing  to  the  growth  of 
American,  Japanese,  and  Canadian  trade,  the  percentage  of 
trade  in  almost  all  European  countries  decreased ;  but  whereas 
in  France  trade  fell  ofif  only  3.7  per  cent.,  in  Germany  it 
decreased  by  9.8  per  cent.,  or  nearly  thrice  as  much.  The 
more  exact  figures  for  Germany,  France,  and  England,  and 
also  for  the  world  as  a  whole,  are  shown  in  the  following  table. 
Exclusive  of  the  precious  metals,  the  value  of  exports  and 
imports  was  as  follows : 


In  thousands  of  millions  of  marks 
(One  thousand  million  marks  = 

£50,000,000 ) 


In  percentages  of  the  world's 
total  trade 


The 
world 


England 


Germany  |  France 


England  Germany   France 


1872 
1902 


49.4 
94.2 


12.2 
16.7 


6.0 
10.3 


5. .3 
9.7 


Decrease  of  the  world's  total  trade  by 


24.7 
17.7 
28.3 


12.2 

10.9 

9.9 


10.7 

103 

3.7 


THE  CHOSEN  PEOPLE  163 

Here,  again,  therefore,  the  effect  on  the  conquered  nation 
has  been  good.^ 

Similarly  with  regard  to  agriculture.  If  we  examine  the 
interesting  curved  lines  showing  the  increase  of  domestic 
animals  in  Prussia  -  we  shall  find  that  horses,  pigs,  goats,  and 
horned  cattle  begin  to  increase  in  or  about  1855,  and  sheep  in 
or  about  1864,  and  that  thenceforth  they  continued  steadily 
increasing.  After  the  Franco-Prussian  War,  no  trace  of  any 
considerable  increase  is  to  be  found.  When  we  keep  to  condi- 
tions more  or  less  reflected  in  all  branches  of  trade  and  indus- 
tr3%  and  avoid  singling  out  special  instances,  we  shall  arrive  at 
similar  statistical  results. 

The  conditions  after  1870  were  not  in  any  way  due  to  mere 
chance.  After  the  Russo-Japanese  War  the  finances  of  vic- 
torious Japan  were  completely  shattered,  while  for  the  first 
time  in  twenty  years  the  budget  of  vanquished  Russia 
showed  a  surplus.  After  the  Boer  War  British  consols  fell 
twenty  per  cent.,  while  the  conquered  Boers,  since  losing  the 
war,  have  become  a  great  power,  whose  wealth  has  increased  to 
an  enormous  extent.  Even  Spain's  regeneration  dates  from 
the  time  when'  she  was  conquered  and  all  her  colonies  taken 
from  her,  among  them  the  "Cuban  Pearl."  Spanish  Govern- 
ment stock  speedil}'  doubled  in  value.  For  further  instances 
Norman  Angell  should  be  consulted. 

How,  indeed,  could  this  be  otherwise,  since  as  a  rule  victory 
belongs  to  whosoever  is  best  and  most  strongly  equipped 
for  war?  These  military  institutions  are  almost  automatically 
extended  to  the  subject  nation,  and  first  of  all,  of  course,  to  the 

1  I'hese  figures  afford  all  the  more  conclusive  proof  of  the  truth 
of  niy  contention  because  even  in  1870  the  value  of  CJerraany's  total  trade 
exceeded  tlie  value  of  France's  by  700  millions.  Despite  the  very  much 
^'reater  increase  of  population  in  Germany,  this  difference  has  become 
less  in  tlie  '.pst  tliirty  years. 

If  British  trade  shows  an  even  greater  relative  decrease  per  cent, 
than  that  of  Germany,  this  is  because  in  1870  England  enormously 
ontdistanced  the  latter.  In  the  intervening  years  Germany  to  some  ex- 
tent caught  up. 

2  Jubilee  Atlas  of  the  German  Royal  Statistical  Office,  No.  58,  p.  71. 


164  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

provinces  taken  from  the  enemy.  The  vanquished,  in  short, 
think  that  in  the  next  war  they  must  have  their  revenge,  and 
therefore  they  endeavor  to  imitate  their  enemy's  institutions, 
seeing  that  these  seem  to  answer  well  in  war, 

§  60. — National  Influence 

Thus  in  the  case  of  every  subjugated  nation  there  is  an 
increase  of  the  outward  signs  of  civilization,  such  as  wealth, 
order,  and  health.  If,  therefore,  such  a  nation  has  only  a 
latent  tendency  to  increase,  then  it  is  likely  to  do  so  faster 
than  before.  It  has  always  been  thus.  In  the  Second  Book  of 
IMoses  (Chapter  I,  v.  12)  we  find:  "But  the  more  they  [the 
Egyptians]  afflicted  them  [the  Jews],  the  more  they  multi- 
plied and  grew."  Every  one  must  know  that  this  is  also  the 
case  with  the  Poles  to-day,  as  can  easily  be  proved  by  statis- 
tics, although  our  official  statistics  unfortunately  do  not  take 
this  important  fact  directly  into  account.  In  the  eleven  ad- 
ministrative districts  of  Bromberg,  ^larienwerder,  Oppeln, 
Arnsberg,  Dansic,  Posen,  Gumbinnen,  Konigsberg,  Breslau, 
Koslin,  and  Miinster,  in  which  more  than  ten  per  cent,  of  the 
population  is  Polish,  the  average  birth-rate  is  forty-two  per 
1000:  but  in  the  remaining  administrative  districts,  where 
there  are  only  a  few  Poles,  it  is  only  thirty-six  per  1000.^ 

In  the  Polish  provinces,  therefore,  16i/^  per  cent,  more  chil- 
dren are  born  than  in  the  German  ones.  Now,  these  so-called 
Polish  provinces  are  by  no  means  purely  Polish,  the  propor- 
tion of  Poles  being  only  one  third.  But  if  this  Polish  third 
causes  a  161/^  per  cent,  increase  in  the  birth-rate,  then  the  Poles 
themselves  must  have  about  fifty  per  cent,  more  children  than 
the  Germans.  That  is,  to  a  thousand  Germans  thirty-six 
German  children  ^  are  born.  To  a  thousand  Poles  fifty-four 
Polish  children  are  born.     Basing  our  calculations  on  the  pro- 

1  Statistics  (Jubilee  publication)  of  the  Royal  Prussian  Statistical 
Office,    1!>05.     IT,    p.    24. 

-  This  fi,eure  is  taken  as  reprcsentin?  tbe  average  birth-rate  in  the 
comparatively  pure  German  administrative  districts. 


THE  CHOSEN  PEOPLE  165 

portions  of  the  Poles  as  proved  by  German  statistics  for  Prus- 
sia ill  the  year  1910,-357  Germans  to  35  Poles/ — we  get  the 
following  algebraical  equation: 

Ig  357  plus  n.  Ig  1036  =  Ig  35  plus  n.  Ig  1054. 

Here  n  equals  the  number  of  j-ears,  which  is  easily  calculated; 
and  the  equation  proves  that  in  the  year  2045  there  will  be  as 
many  Poles  in  Prussia  as  Germans. 

Besides  these  purely  biological  considerations,  psychology 
also  intervenes,  for  in  every  oppressed  people  the  national 
sense  becomes  very  much  stronger.  In  general  this,  of  course, 
applies  only  to  modern  times,  for  except  the  Jews  no  ancient 
nation  had  any  genuine  racial  national  sentiment;  it  merely 
felt  that  it  adhered  to  a  particular  form  of  civilization.  (Cf. 
Chap.  VII.)  This  is  quite  understandable,  since  a  people  can- 
not fail  to  think  it  would  be  better  for  it  to  become  strong  if 
it  has  just  had  a  practical  demonstration  of  its  being  allow- 
able for  the  strong  to  subdue  the  weak,  and  if  the  unpleasant- 
ness of  such  subjection  is  daily  impressed  upon  it  by  number- 
less petty  subterfuges.  Moreover,  it  will  naturally  assume 
that  there  must  be  many  advantages  in  subjugating  another 
nation,  and  it  will  consequently  strain  every  nerve  to  attain  a 
national  prestige  equal  to  that  of  the  nation  by  which  it  has 
been  conquered. 

"We  have  seen  this  in  the  case  of  every  oppressed  nation  of 
modern  times.  Not  till  Poland  was  partitioned  did  the  Poles 
awake  to  national  consciousness;  at  any  rate  their  national 
consciousness  was  incalculably  increased  thereby;  while  that 
of  the  Italians  can  be  proved  to  have  been  awakened  by  the 
Irredentist  movement,  and  France's  national  feeling  now 
mainly  subsists  by  thinking  of  her  "lost  provinces."  Even 
Germany  is  no  exception  to  the  rule,  and  German  national  feel- 
ing awakened  under  the  oppression  of  Napoleon 's  foreign  dom- 

1  Huhcr:  "(Jcoiriipliisch  statistische  Tabellen"  ("Statistical  Geo- 
graphiral  Tables'").  1914.     63rd  ed  ,  p.  11. 


166  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

ination.  As  Bismarck  said  to  the  Jena  students:^  "With- 
out the  oppression  of  foreign  rule  the  awakening  of  German  na- 
tional feeling  in  Prussia  would  scarcely  have  been  possible. 
Even  now,  in  Austria,  German  patriotism  is  the  strongest,  at 
any  rate  the  noisiest,  where  the  German,  although  ruler  in 
nanie,  must  nevertheless  fight  for  its  existence  against  a  for- 
eign people.  German  patriotism  is  most  noticeable  in  Prus- 
sian Germany,  where  the  German  has  to  contend  against 
French  and  Frenchlings,  Danes  and  Poles." 

The  practical  lesson  from  all  this,  a  lesson  which  might 
assuredly  have  been  arrived  at  more  easily,  is  to  annoy  for- 
eign peoples  as  little  as  possible.  Any  one  not  observing  this 
obviously  common  sense  precept  injures  himself  alone. 

To  cite  one  instance  profoundly  affecting  every  German, 
how  is  Germany  the  better  for  the  Poles  being  oppressed? 
For  Prussians  and  German-speaking  Austrians,^  Polish  op- 
pression simply  means  a  thorn  in  their  flesh.  In  Austria  the 
Poles  have  already  to  a  certain  extent  the  upper  hand,  while 
in  Germany  their  power  is  daily  increasing.  Even  West- 
phalian  soil,  where  perhaps  the  most  pure-blooded  Teutons 
live,  is  in  danger  of  becoming  a  Polish  wedge,  and  a  West- 
phalian  Pole  has  already  only  very  narrowly  missed  being 
elected  to  the  Reichstag.  It  is  just  those  who  believe  in 
the  future  of  Germany  and  the  "German  idea"  who  ought 
sorrowfully  to  contemplate  Austria.  In  this  land,  which  has 
been  built  up  only  on  dynastic  principles  and  on  contingencies 
such  as  the  celebrated  Hapsburg  marriages,  millions  of  Ger- 
mans are  slowly  going  under  simply  because  the  concjuerors 
conquer  too  much  and  are  now  a  minority  as  compared  with 
the  mass  of  the  people,  who  are  of  foreign  origin. 

Even  Grillparzer,^  Austria's  greatest  poet,  who  all  his  life 
long  believed  in  the  significance   and  power  of  the  sword, 

1  Kommers  is  the  word  used.  Bismarck  spoke  at  a  students'  con- 
vivial evening  or  drinking  bout. — Translator. 

2  "Austrian  Germany"  is  tlie  peculiar  phrase  actually  used. — Trans- 
lator. 

3  Grillparzer's  "Samtliche  VVerke,"  1870.     Vol.  Ill,  p.  238,  Cotta. 


THE  CHOSEN  PEOPLE  167 

resigned  himself  at  last  to  the  melancholy  conclusion  that  vic- 
tory on  the  battle-field  means  nothing ;  and  his  last  poem,  writ- 
ten shortly  before  his  death,  and  iu  celebration  of  Austria's 
most  famous  victory,  contains  four  lines  testifying  to  this 
conviction : 

"Marchfeld !     So  ist  dein  Sieg  nicbt  walir 

Aus   unseres   Herrscherbauses   f riihesten   Tagen  1 — 

Konig  Przeniysl  Ottokar 

Hat  den  Rudolf  von  Habsburg  gescblagen. 

Despite  all  the  successes  on  the  battle-field,  two  identical 
conceptions — those  of  the  internal  strength  of  a  nation  and  of 
inalienable  right — have  carried  the  day.  In  vain  were  the 
triumphs  of  cannon  and  battle-ship ;  in  the  last  resort  it  was 
still  living  weapons  which  decided  the  issue. 

§  61. — The  iSivord  for  the  Weak 

The  fact  that  defeat  has  "tonic  effects"  and  victory  en- 
ervating effects  means  that  the  scales  of  Justice,  wherewith 
war  must  weigh  the  nations,  can  never  rest.  The  oppressed 
are  forever  gathering  together  to  avenge  themselves  in  war 
on  their  enemies;  and  again  and  again  they  will  succeed. 
Hence  the  wearisomeness  and  sameness  of  history,  which  is 
merely  a  ceaseless  ebb  and  flow  of  ever-ending  wars.  Over 
and  over  again  has  it  appeared,  and  it  will  appear  again  in 
the  future,  that  no  country  can  in  the  long  run  be  greater 
than  its  people;  and  no  changes  can  come  about  unless  man, 
perceiving  that  things  cannot  continue  thus,  makes  a  change 
of  his  own  free  will. 

It  almost  seems,  however,  as  if  no  one  would  ever  profit  by 
all  these  lessons,  and  Hegel  rightly  maintains  that  "the  only 
thing  history  teaches  is  that  it  has  never  taught  any  one  any- 
thing." In  the  case  of  the  present  war  every  nation  is  clearly 
anxious  to  prove  that  it  is  still  youthful  and  vigorous,  and 
therefore  it  behaves  just  like  a  child,  scattering  the  teachings 
of  its  elders  to  the  winds  and  making  experiments  on  its  own 


168  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

account.     And  the  experiments  will  be  made,  but  it  will  be 
too  late! 

Empires  have  endured  only  when,  as  in  Rome,  the  spade  fol- 
lowed the  sword,  or  when,  as  in  England's  case,  a  colonizing 
civilization  has  followed  the  cannon.  Yet  this  does  not  go 
to  the  root  of  the  matter;  for  the  most  deep-seated  cause  for 
the  success  of  these  two  empire-building  countries  lies  in  the 
fact,  by  no  means  fortuitous,  that  both  Romans  and  Britons 
called  and  still  do  call  their  conquered  people  not  "subject 
nations,"  but  "confederates."  A  world-wide  empire  cannot 
be  welded  together  and  govern  itself  except  freely ;  and  wher- 
ever this  principle  of  liberty  has  not  been  respected,  conquest 
with  the  sword,  no  matter  how  thorough  it  may  have  appeared, 
has  never  availed  aught.  Anything  may  be  done  with  bay- 
onets, only,  as  Lassalle  once  said,  we  must  not  sit  down  upon 
them,  and  must  not  use  them  for  trying  to  conquer  countries. 
Every  people  ought  to  try  its  best  to  colonize  and  to  spread ; 
but  for  this  purpose  it  must  endeavor  to  increase  its  vital 
forces^  its  living  weapons,  to  the  utmost  possible  extent.  Any 
one  imagining  he  can  colonize  with  the  point  of  the  sword  is 
a  fool  and  a  weakling.  None  save  the  weak  and  foolish  need 
a  sword;  the  ivise  and  strong  need  none. 


CHAPTER  V 

How  War  Is  Being  Metamorphosed 

1. — THE   DUSK  OF   THE   WAR   GODS 

§  62. — The  Growth  of  Armies 

"fhe  purport  of  this  chapter  is  to  show  that,  as  time  has 
gone  on,  wars  and  war  losses  have  become  greater.  Not  much 
can  be  claimed  to  have  resulted  from  any  attempts  made  to 
"humanize"  warfare,  and  that  valuable  sense  of  solidarity 
that  used  to  prevail  iu  armies  is  tending  completely  to  dis- 
appear. 

These  historical  facts  might  at  first  seem  to  destroy  all  hope 
of  perpetual  peace  ever  prevailing.  On  reflection,  however, 
it  will  be  seen  that  in  the  complete  change  which  is  coming 
over  war  there  are  so  many  obvious  symptoms  of  decline  that 
a  rapidly  nearing  end  may  be  prophesied  not  only  for  the 
present  war,  but  for  war  in  general. 

That  war  once  consisted  of  duels  we  are  even  now  strongly 
reminded  by  the  name  helium,  which  is  derived  from  duellum. 
Then  "friends"  used  to  lend  a  hand,  and  even  in  Homer's 
time  it  was  an  event  of  historical  importance  when  a  few  dozen 
Grecian  princes  with  their  servants  besieged  a  medium-sized 
provincial  city  such  as  Troy,  round  whose  walls  a  good  i-uuner 
(Hector)  could  run  twice  without  being  incapacitated,  and 
which,  therefore,  cannot  have  been  very  large.  Originally,  in- 
deed, wars  meant  the  administration  of  comparatively  mild 
thrashings,  such  as  are  unavoidable  among  peoples  wandering 
about  iu  small  gangs  or  living  in  remote  villages.^     In  those 

1  Cf.  the  description  of  Ithaca. 

169 


170  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

times  it  was  already  an  event  for  a  hundred  men  to  be  eon- 
fronting  one  another. 

Even  when  we  come  to  ancient  history  we  must  not  form 
exaggerated  conceptions  of  the  size  of  the  armies.^  The  ac- 
counts of  the  vast  armies  of  Darius  and  Xerxes  are  mythical. 
At  all  events,  they  were  beaten  at  Marathon  by  tifteen  thou- 
sand Greeks,  all  told,  and  the  ten  thousand  Greeks  who  fought 
at  Cunaxa "  were  a  mighty  army  according  to  the  notions  of 
those  days.  Even  the  Roman  armies  were  comparatively 
small,  and  their  actual  numbers  must  mostly  have  varied  be- 
tween forty  thousand  and  eighty  thousand,  since  the  total 
number  of  men  in  the  Roman  garrisons  in  three  parts  of  the 
world  did  not  exceed  two  hundred  thousand.  At  present 
this  extent  of  territory  produces  about  a  hundred  times  as 
many  soldiers. 

During  the  IMiddle  Ages  armies  tended  to  become  smaller; 
indeed  in  most  matters  pertaining  to  external  civilization  this 
period  was  one  of  general  retrogression.  Even  the  "vast 
squadrons"  of  the  famous  generals  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War 
seldom  exceeded  thirty  thousand  men,  and  when  fifty  thou- 
sand imperial  troops  were  assembled  together  once  at  Nordlin- 
gen,  this  was  considered  a  very  large  number.  Not  till  the 
time  of  the  Roi  Soleil  of  Versailles  (Louis  XIV)  were  there 
armies  of  a  hundred  thousand  men,  which  the  "Philosopher 
of  Sans  Souci"  (Frederick  II)  made  slightly  larger  still. 
Once,  indeed,  in  the  spring  of  1757  he  had.  actually  brought 
150,000  soldiers  together. 

Then  came  the  French  Revolution,  and  the  levee  en  masse 
of  1793  produced  an  army  of  700,000,  while  in  1812  Napoleon 

1  Cf .  Hans  Delbriick,  "Geist  und  Masse  in  der  Geschiohte"  ('•Intellect 
and  Numbers  in  History"),  1912.  Verlag  der  "Preiissischen  jahr- 
bQcher."  Delbriick  mentions  the  fact  that  at  Hastings  only  four  thou- 
sand Normans  fought,  and  not  1,200,00U,  as  reported;  and  that  the 
Polish  army  at  Tannenberg  did  not  number  5,200,000,  but  only  from 
sixteen  to  seventeen  thousand;  and  so  on. 

2  About  sixty  miles  northwest  of  Babylon,  on  the  Euphrates.  The 
battle  was  fought  in  401  b,  c,  between  Artaxerxes  Mnemon,  King  of 
Persia,  and  the  rival  brother,  Cyrus  the  Younger,  who  fell. — Translator. 


HOW  WAR  IS  BEING  METAMORPHOSED      171 

had  actually  750,000  soldiers  under  the  colors  in  Russia  and 
Spain  alone.  Prussia,  on  the  contrary,  despite  her  consider- 
able expansion,  had  in  1806  only  200,000  soldiers,  including 
the  fortification  garrisons,  half  of  them  foreigners.  After  the 
peace  of  Tilsit,  Scharnhorst  ^  thought  it  out  of  the  question 
for  Prussia,  with  her  five  million  inhabitants,  to  have  an  army 
exceeding  120,000  or  at  most  150,000;  while  in  realit}^  he  did 
not  insist  upon  the  army  numbering  more  than  70,000  on  a 
peace  footing  and  87,000  on  a  war  footing.  According  to 
Scharnhorst 's  principles,  therefore,  the  strength  of  the  Ger- 
man Army  on  a  war  footing  would  even  now  be  allowed  only 
slightly  to  exceed  one  million ;  and  in  any  case  he  would  have 
considered  more  than  1,600,000,  or  at  most  2,100,000,  out  of  the 
question  in  Germany  to-day.  Even  the  mass  levy  of  1813, 
when  Germany's  "whole  military  strength  was  strained  to 
the  uttermost,"  did  not  succeed  in  raising  her  army  beyond 
128,571  men,^  inclusive  of  men  fit  for  garrison  service,  which 
to-day  would  mean  an  army  of  only  1,700,000. 

These  facts  therefore  show  the  sudden  and  enormous  in- 
crease of  armies  within  recent  years.  From  time  immem- 
orial armies  have  been  comparatively  small,  and  now  all  of  a 
sudden  we  are  overwhelmed  by  disaster.  That  it  is  a  disaster 
is  manifest  from  the  direction  of  the  curved  line,  which  in  the 
nineteenth  century  shows  an  upward  tendency,  and  now  seems 
as  if  it  would  never  cease  mounting  upward.  This,  however, 
cannot  be,  and  the  following  considerations  will  show  that  we 
shall  again  be  overtaken  by  disaster,  and  this  within  measur- 
able distance  of  time.  Thus,  supposing  the  tendency  of  the 
curve  to  remain  the  same  as  during  the  last  century;  that  is, 
supposing  it  to  increase  very  much  in  accordance  with  the 
equation: 

the  strength  of  an  army  ::^  a  x  af^ 

1  "M<5moirea  dca  TJenerala  von  Scliarnliorst  vom  21.     1807." 
-  According   to    C.    von    Plotho    in    "Der    Krieg   in   Deutschland    und 
Frankreich."     ("War  in  France  and  Germany.") 


172 


THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 


in  which  a  stands  for  half  a  million  and  t  for  time.  Then 
in  about  three  generations  we  should  already  have  armies 
numbering  billions.  Now,  as  these  would  exceed  the  popu- 
lation of  those  days,  even  allowing  for  the  utmost  possible  rate 
of  increase,  it  will  be  seen  to  be  logically  impossible  for  armies 
to  continue  to  increase  as  they  have  done  during  the  last 


Fig.  5. 


lOMitliona 


%^Si^ 


'■5 


.Gombefia  1871 


Homeric  Ar-rny 
»000  8.C 


f^omon  Aymy  Medieval  Aymy.        Frederick  E,     f*7,      " 


Gennany  1870 

'son 


0  1000 

The  Growth  of  Abmies. 


2000  A.D. 


hundred  years.  Some  cause  must  come  into  operation 
which  will  once  more  force  the  curved  line  to  descend.^ 
This  is  not  merely  a  mathematical,  but  also  a  scientific, 
necessity. 

1  Even  assuming  that  all  human  beings  increase  faster  in  the  next 
hundred  years  than  any  nation  has  done  hitherto,  and  that  then  all 
nations  upon  earth  will  be  involved  in  war,  and  all  available  men  and 
women  take  part  in  the  war,  there  would  still  be  nothing  like  enough  of 
them.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  worthy  of  note  that,  according  to  this 
curve,  still  greater  armies  will  be  possible  in  the  next  few  years. 


HOW  WAR  IS  BEING  METAMORPHOSED      173 

That  wars  now  involve  so  much  larger  numbers,  there- 
fore, need  not  alarm  any  one,  especially  as  this  is,  at  any  rate, 
partly  due  to  the  growth  of  social  impulses  and  to  man's  in- 
creased tendency  to  form  associations.  Even  Homer  says  that 
fellow-countrymen  do  not  make  war  on  one  another,  and  this 
is  still  so.  The  only  difference  is  that  the  aggregates  of 
people  who  feel  as  fellow-countrymen  have  grown  larger. 
Once  it  was  the  tribe,  then  it  was  the  city,  and  now  it  is  the 
state,  or  rather,  the  union  of  states,  which  feels  itself 
a  separate  entity.  The  greatness  of  such  entities  must  of 
course  always  deteraiine  the  greatness  of  war.  That  wars 
should  become  greater  is  in  itself  no  proof  that  human 
beings  have  become  more  Avarlike  and  cantankerous,  but 
rather  a  sign  that  they  have  become  more  peaceful  and  con- 
ciliatory. 

§  63. — The  Death  Agony  of  the  War  Giant  ^ 

Hut  there  is  yet  another  cause  for  consolation  in  the  fact 
that  wars  continue  to  get  bigger  and  bigger.  Whenever  any- 
thing is  to  die  a  natural  death,  it  must  first  grow  great ;  that 
is,  reach  its  maximum  size.  In  Germany  mice  have  not  be- 
come extinct,  but  first  the  aurochs  died  out,  and  the  bison  and 
then  the  bear  and  the  wolf;  and  now  even  our  proud  stag  is 
kept  alive  only  by  artificial  means.  In  nature  it  is  only  the 
big  creatures  which  die  out;  but  everything  which  is  big  must 
and  will  die,  because,  in  conformity  wnth  the  inevitable  law 
of  growth,  it  will  grow  beyond  the  limits  of  what  is  possible. 

1  The  word  here  used  (that  is,  giganthasie) ,  signifying  the  death  of 
giants,  hints  at  one  of  the  most  important  principles  of  self-regulation 
which  cau  be  deduced  from  paleontology.  Bones  found  show  that  in 
the  course  of  centuries  all  living  creatures  except  insects,  which  have 
thus  never  become  e.vtinct,  grow  and  grow,  and  then,  when  thcv  iiave 
become  very  large  and  apparently  all-powerful,  they  suddenly  become  ex- 
tinct. The  facts  can  be  proved,  and  the  reasons  for  this  phenomenon 
have  been  hinted  at  in  §§  40  and  41.  In  reality  it  is  the  same  thing  as 
is  called  in  the  German  legend  "tiie  dusk  of  the  Gods"  (Uotterdam- 
merung) . 


174  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

This  is  the  profound  meaning  which  the  natural  scientist  at- 
taches to  the  phrase  "the  dusk  of  the  Gods" — a  meaning  so 
easy  to  understand  and  yet  so  full  of  mystery.  Idolized  as 
war  is,  it,  too,  will  be  hurled  from  its  pinnacle  of  power.  In 
my  opinion,  indeed,  any  one  dispassionately  contemplating 
the  spectacle  of  the  present  war  cannot  fail  to  see  in  it  al- 
ready many  signs  of  the  approaching  downfall  of  wars. 
Across  the  vast  battle-fronts  blows  a  chill,  warning  breeze,  be- 
tokening the  approaching  dusk  of  the  gods. 

Everything  beautiful  and  characteristic  about  past  wars  has 
vanished ;  the  gay  camp  life  and  the  bright  uniforms,  the  sol- 
diers' wild  spirits,  the  gorgeous  heroism  of  the  valiant  "sum- 
moners  to  the  fray,"  the  men  who  used  to  fight  in  glorious 
single  combats,  and  then,  mounted  on  ''white  chargers" 
visible  from  afar,  show  themselves  to  their  men,  and  last  of 
all,  standing  on  a  distant  hill,  fix  all  eyes  upon  them,  if  only 
because  of  the  noise  made  by  their  trumpeters. 

The  general  has  left  the  battle-field,  and  now  the  soldier  has 
left  it  also,  the  former  to  sit  in  his  villa,  holding  the  telephone- 
receiver  to  his  ear,  and  the  latter  to  keep  watches  in  the 
trenches.  But  the  battle-field  itself  is  empty  and  deso- 
late, though  the  noise  of  battle  can  be  heard  for  miles 
around. 

It  is  impossible  not  to  think  that  the  battle-field  has  ceased  to 
be  the  first  consideration.  Formerly  the  place  of  battle  used 
to  be  carefully  selected ;  now  we  lie  down  round  the  country- 
side and  dig  ourselves  in.  Where  we  do  so,  after  all,  matters 
not  at  all ;  only  there  must  be  a  nice  long  line,  as  straight  as 
possible,  and  there  the  armies  lie,  often,  it  is  said,  only  a  few 
yards  apart,  and  make  "war." 

The  bulk  of  the  work  is  done  in  quite  another  way.  One 
man  calculates  how  much  copper,  gold,  or  iron  there  is :  an- 
other, how  best  to  make  the  supplies  of  corn,  meat,  fat,  etc., 
"hold  out";  a  third,  how  the  railways  must  be  run;  a  fourth, 
where,  according  to  the  map,  his  missiles  will  hit;  and  a  fifth, 
the  general  himself,  for  how  many  troops  he  must  ask  in  order 


HOW  WAR  IS  BEING  METAMORPHOSED      175 

to  have  the  necessary  "density"  on  a  particular  "space." 
They  must  not  be  too  few,  otherwise  the  attacking  columns 
will  not  be  deep  enough,  and  there  will  be  too  few  reserves; 
and  they  must  also  not  be  too  many,  otherwise  there  will  be 
difficulty  in  feeding  them.  And  many  other  persons  are  mak- 
ing many  other  calculations.  Whoever  calculates  best  wins. 
The  fact  that,  instead  of  having  a  single  man  of  genius  as  gen- 
eral, we  have  now  the  impersonal  mechanism  of  the  general 
staff  may  be  taken  as  showing  the  extreme  length  to  which 
this  new  order  of  things,  which  first  showed  itself  in  Prussia, 
has  now  been  pushed. 

Not  for  a  moment  do  I  assert  that  this  mode  of  waging  war 
is  easier  than  the  old  way.  Quite  the  contrary ;  and  I  am 
firmly  convinced  that  it  takes  up  more  time.  Frederick  II 
and  Napoleon,  when  in  camp,  not  infrequently  spent  some  time 
in  "agreeable  converse";  for  Napoleon's  many-sidedness,  even 
when  on  campaign,  was  admirable.  But  I  am  quite  ready  to 
believe  that  Hindenburg  does  nothing  but  wage  war.  But 
there  has  been  a  change  since  Napoleon's  time,  a  complete 
change ;  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  old  lively,  merry 
war  is  dead,  its  place  having  been  taken  by  something  new, 
something  which  to  me  seems  to  show  signs  of  approaching 
decay,  but  which  to  others  may  seem  to  contain  possibilities 
of  further  developments. 

And  it  may  be  that  they  are  right,  for  war  has  not  yet  at- 
tained its  zenith.  Once,  while  Freiligrath  was  still  writing 
good  poems,  he  described  a  wondrous  vision  of  the  last  battle 
in  Europe: 

Zwei  Lager  heute  zerkliiften  die  Welt 
Und  ein  Hiiben,  ein  Driiben  nur  gilt. 

This  last  die  in  the  old  game  is  not  yet  cast.  Neutrals  there 
still  are,  and  perhaps  old  Freiligrath  was  right  that  there  must 
first  be  some  Armageddon,  some  battle  in  which  the  whole 
world  will  take  part.^ 

1  Cf .  what  has  been  said  (§34)  about  Europeans  and  Mongols. 


176  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

If  mankind  does  not  recollect  itself  in  time,  then  this  last 
battle  will  come  to  pass ;  but  then  it  will  be  an  end  of  all  things. 
One  thing  is  certain :  if  war  ever  does  attain  its  utmost  pos- 
sible size,  then  its  death  must  ensue;  for  if  once  one  half  of 
mankind  has  had  a  victory  over  the  other  half,  who  is  to  go  on 
fighting? 

The  course,  however,  is  laid  down  along  which  human  evo- 
lution, whether  voluntarily  or  not,  will  proceed,  and  our  good 
railways  and  steamers,  our  airmen  and  radio-telegrams  of  the 
future  will  insure  this  course  being  followed.  The  horrible 
aspect  of  human  evolution  in  the  past  was  just  this,  that  while 
our  technical  knowledge  and  means  of  commuuication  impelled 
us  to  be  constantly  forming  new  and  larger,  more  comprehen- 
sive organizations,  we  crazy  human  beings,  instead  of  using 
them  as  a  source  of  ever-increasing  benefits,  converted  them 
into  a  means  of  ever  greater  destruction. 

However  this  may  be,  war  will  one  day  have  attained  its  ut- 
most limits,  and  another  thing  is  certain :  the  last  war  will 
also  be  the  greatest  and  most  terrible,  even  as  the  last  Saurian 
was  the  hugest  of  all.  This  being  so,  he  who  knows  can  af- 
ford to  smile  calmly,  despite  all  the  horrors  going  on,  and 
even  though  he  may  perhaps  feel  the  absurdity  of  these  atroci- 
ties more  keenly  than  any  one  else.  Our  technical  knowledge, 
in  brief,  is  causing  war  to  grow  to  a  gigantic  size,  and  will 
then  slay  it.  In  nature  it  is  always  so.  "Ajax  fell  through 
Ajax'  strength,"  and  the  enormous  speed  at  which  our  tech- 
nical knowledge  is  progressing  affords  us  this  consolation,  that 
the  dusk  of  the  war  gods  will  not  be  long  in  coming, 

§  64, — Defensive  Warfare  and  Lying 

We  have  yet  another  cause  for  confidence.  War  is  no 
longer  accepted  as  a  matter  of  course,  but  an  attempt  is  made 
to  impose  verbal  limits  upon  it.  Cabinet  warfare  and  of- 
fensive  warfare,  it  is  said,  are  wrong,  and  only  defensive  war- 
fare is  right.  If  those  who  talk  thus  meant  what  they  said, 
this  would  be  already  something  to  the  good;  for  before  any 


HOW  WAR  IS  BEING  METAMORPHOSED      177 

one  can  claim  the  just  right  of  self-defense  he  must  first  have 
been  attacked,  and  any  one  who  approves  of  defensive  wars 
only  is  really  condemning  the  possibility  of  wars  occurring  at 
all;  and  if  every  one  held  such  views,  there  would  really  be 
no  more  wars.  But  men  in  general  do  not  yet  hold  such  views. 
All  they  do,  as  Thomas  Upham  ^  says,  is  to  turn  war  out  at 
the  front  door  in  order  secretly  to  let  it  in  again  at  the 
back. 

But  let  us  put  ourselves  in  the  place  of  some  particular 
nation  which  always  believes  that  it  was  the  other  side  which 
began.  The  question  still  remains  as  to  what  may  really  be 
justifiably  defended.  In  primitive  conditions  it  does  not  seem 
to  have  been  difficult  to  decide  in  such  a  case.  If  a  band  of 
soldiers  plundered  and  robbed  in  any  district  the  farmers 
from  the  neighboring  villages  clubbed  together  and  killed  the 
peace-breakers,  and  this  was  looked  on  as  legitimate  self- 
defense.  IMatters  at  present  are  far  more  complex,  for  this 
apparently  most  legitimate  kind  of  defense  is  now  solely  con- 
fined to  those  "wild  beasts  in  human  shape"  denominated 
franc-tireurs.  JMoreover,  for  a  long  while  past  the  defense  of 
one's  native  soil  has  not  been  considered  a  distinguishing 
characteristic  of  defensive  warfare  any  more  than  crossing 
the  enemy's  frontier  is  supposed  to  be  at  all  a  distinguishing 
characteristic  of  aggressive  warfare,  as  Belgium's  example 
proves. 

This  love  of  lying  makes  the  expression- "  defensive  war- 
fare" a  mere  phrase.  It  goes  without  saying  that  if  any  one 
breaks  into  a  house  or  invades  a  country,  those  concerned  have 
a  right  to  turn  him  out,  although  in  civilized  countries  the 
police  are  generally  used  for  such  purposes.  To  have  a  police 
force  capable  of  hanging  or  executing  justice  not  merely  on 
petty  private  individuals,  but  even  on  great  generals  and  re- 
publics is  precisely  what  the  chivalrous  opponents  of  robber 
barons  are  aiming  at. 

But  who  is  to  be  considered  the  aggressor?     He  who  fired 

1  Thomas  Upham'a  "Manual  of  Peace." 


178  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

the  first  shot,  he  first  crossed  the  frontier,  or  he  who  sent  the 
ultimatum?  It  is  just  he  who  will  always  say  that  he  was 
merely  acting  in  self-defense.  Hence  to-day  it  is  more  usual 
to  seek  for  the  aggressor  and  not  for  the  guilty  party.  But  to 
iind  him  is  much  more  difficult.  In  my  student  days  I  once 
wanted  to  defend  myself  against  an  obvious  literary  wrong 
done  me,  but  my  revered  professor,  the  great  physiologist, 
Ewald  Hering,  dissuaded  me  from  doing  so.  "You  say  Kerr 
X —  made  a  mistake,"  he  argued,  "but  he  will  reply  that  you 
are  stupid.  You  object  that  abuse  is  no  proof,  but  he  will 
retort  that  you  began  abusing  him.  And  so  it  will  go.  You 
will  reproach  each  other  with  making  misquotations,  will 
make  unimportant  side  issues  the  main  issue,  and  will  gradu- 
ally get  more  and  more  insulting,  till  at  length  you  stop  with- 
out any  result  except  that  you  wall  be  enemies  for  life." 

Most  of  the  absolutely  unnecessary  so-called  scientific  con- 
troversies actually  do  arise  in  this  way,  without  any  one  being 
really  able  to  say  who  first  began  to  adopt  an  unprofessional 
tone.  A  tavern  brawl  or  a  street  fight  comes  about  in  just 
the  same  way,  and  so  do  wars.  Men  talk  and  act  and  misun- 
derstand themselves  into  war. 

From  time  immemorial  the  attempt  has  been  made  to  con- 
vert every  war  into  a  defensive  war  by  shifting  the  question 
of  the  blame  from  oneself  on  to  some  one  else;  but  ap- 
parently Gustavus  Adolphus,  King  of  Sweden,  was  the  fii*st 
sj^stematically  to  set  about  doing  this.  When  this  monarch 
sailed  across  the  Baltic,  to  conquer  Germany,  he  did  so  not  as 
an  aggressor,  but  as  "defensor  fidei" — Defender  of  the  True 
Faith.  This  different  point  of  view  explains  the  many  dif- 
ferent opinions  held  about  him.  The  wholly  ignorant  peas- 
ants of  those  days  abided  by  hard  facts  only,  and  they  have 
preserved  such  evil  recollections  of  the  Swedish  knights  and 
their  Swedish  jargon  and  other  pious  expedients  that  even 
now  in  North  Germany  the  time  of  the  Swedes  is  synonymous 
with  a  "time  of  terror."  Historians,  however,  at  all  events 
those  of  Protestant  inclinations,  "rightly"  consider  that  Gus- 


HOW  WAR  IS  BEING  METAMORPHOSED      179 

tavus  Adolphus  was  on  the  whole  greatly  to  be  admired  for 
having  gone  to  war. 

A  iiuudred  other  things  can  be  just  as  well  defended  as 
religious  beliefs;  and,  to  give  only  one  instance,  in  wars  all 
over  the  world  it  is  only  too  often  evident  that  one  combatant 
is  defending  his  so-called  rights  and  the  other  his  liberty. 
Now,  no  one  any  longer  attaches  the  least  importance  to 
rights  which  are  mere  matters  of  form,  York  formally  broke 
the  treaty  of  alliance  existing  with  France,  and  in  the  middle 
of  tlie  war  went  over  to  Napoleon's  enemies,  thus  instituting 
the  war  of  liberation,  which  afterward  received  the  king's 
sanction.  Nevertheless,  even  in  the  opinion  of  still-living 
Frenchmen,  Prussia  is  undeniably  entitled  to  speak  of  her 
"Holy  War"  and  of  her  defense,  although  it  must  never  be 
forgotten  that  the  "tyrant  of  the  French"  also  believed  that 
he  was  defending  the  civilization  of  Europe  united  under  his 
conmiand  against  the  threatening  inroads  of  Asiatics,  which 
was  his  way  of  describing  the  hordes  of  Russian  Cossacks. 
And  if  we  would  now  solve  the  questions  then  raised,  we 
should  find  that  the  solution  depended  upon  whether  we  adopt 
the  Russian,  German,  French,  or  European  point  of  view. 
The  institution  of  just  defensive  warfare  was  considerably 
extended  by  the  introduction  of  preventive  warfare,  the  chief 
charaL'tt-risties  of  which  have  been  revealed  to  us  with  con- 
siderable candor  by  Bismarck.^  You  must  choose  the  time 
for  striking  your  blow,  which,  in  parenthesis,  is,  after  all,  only 
the  "best  way  to  cut  a  fine  figure."  For  strategical  rea- 
sons this  time  must  be  that  in  which  "it  is  more  to  our  ad- 
vantage for  matters  to  come  to  a  head  quickly  than  for  them 
to  drag  on."-  Skilful  diplomacy  must  contrive  to  make  out 
that  it  is  we  who  have  been  attacked.^  Then,  if  things  go  ill, 
there  is  nothing  more  to  be  done ;  but  if  they  go  well,  you  can 

1  Bismarck's  "Gedanken  und  Erinnerungen"    ("Retleotions  and  Recol- 
lections"), Vol    II,  Ciiap.  XXII,  about  the  Ems  telegram 
!<  Moltke's  words,  spui;en  at  a  luncheon  on  June  13,  1S70. 
3  Biiniarck'a  "elucidation"  on  the  same  occasion 


ISO  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

throw  overboard  any  such  old  wives'  tale  as  defensive  warfare, 
and  proudly  admit  a  flourish  of  trumpets  in  order  to  show 
your  statesmanlike  qualities. 

There  are  now  such  a  host  of  conceptions  which  are  pos- 
sessions worth  defending  in  consequence  that  every  one  now- 
adays insists  upon  having  gone  to  war  solely  for  purposes  of 
defense.  lu  proof  of  this  we  need  only  read  the  speeches 
delivered  by  the  ministers  of  the  powers  taking  part  in  the 
war  of  1914.  It  should  be  noted  that  even  if  perhaps  not  all 
the  ministers  of  all  the  ten  powers  were  really  convinced  of 
the  justice  of  their  cause,  yet  obviously  the  overwhelming  ma- 
jority of  the  people  were  so. 

Serbia  is  defending  herself  against  "absorption"  by  Aus- 
tria; Russia  and  Montenegro  are  defending  their  "brother  by 
race";  Austria  her  "prestige  in  the  Balkans";  Germany  her 
"tidelity  to  the  Nibelungen";  France  is  waging  a  war  of 
liberation  and  defending  the  annexed  provinces  against  the 
"conqueror";  England  is  defending  the  rights  of  neutrals; 
Japan  the  "^Mongolian  Idea"  in  the  far  East:  and  Belgium 
alone  is  defending  her  own  soil,  while  as  for  Turkey,  no  one 
yet  knows  what  she  really  is  defending,  although  it  would  seem 
that,  like  Belgium,  she  did  not  enter  the  war  entirely  of  her 
own  free  will. 

Additional  support  has  been  lent  to  the  foregoing  definitions 
of  war  aims  by  the  attitude  of  the  socialist  parties  in  the 
belligerent  countries.  These  parties  are  certainly  pacifically 
inclined  and  averse  from  any  but  defensive  warfare.  Hence 
their  whole-hearted  cooperation  proves  that  these  official  asser- 
tions are  really  believed  by  the  great  mass  of  the  people  in 
belligerent  countries.  The  German  Social  Democrats  are  as- 
suredly the  best  disciplined  of  all,  yet  their  papers  contained 
statements  to  the  etfect  that  the  only  reason  why  Germany 
began  her  defensive  war  against  Russian  ezarism  by  attack- 
ing Belgium  was  to  be  able  to  invade  France  by  the  line  of 
least  resistance,  and  that  even  the  military  subjugation  of 


HOW  WAR  IS  BEING  METAMORPHOSED      181 

France  was  to  be  merely  a  strategical  episode  in  the  defense 
of  Germany  against  Russia ! 

But  it  is  not  only  the  mass  of  the  people  who  think  thus; 
even  the  educated  classes  do  so.  In  England  idealists  of  a 
pacifist  turn  of  mind  stultify  their  appeals  for  peace  by  sug- 
gestively intimating  that  (English)  civilization  must  be  de- 
fended against  Prussian  militarism;  while  their  fellows  in 
Germany  think  they  must  defend  German  civilization  against 
English  narrow-mindedness. 

That  all  these  views  are  subjectively  true  we  are  quite  con- 
vinced, but  for  this  very  reason  we  must  not  allow  them  to  be 
objectively  true.  Nothing  could  better  show  the  impossibility 
of  accurately  defining  the  conception  of  defensive  warfare 
than  the  constant  repetition  of  such  dicta.  They  simply 
prove  once  more  that  from  the  purely  national  point  of  view 
every  war  must  be  just  and  right  if  a  nation  enters  upon  it 
of  its  own  free  will.  It  was  really  not  necessary  to  write 
any  pamphlets  on  the  subject,  for  they  would  never  convince 
"the  other  side,"  to  whom,  of  course,  "their  war"  appears  no 
less  just  and  right.  Whoever,  therefore,  desires  to  investi- 
gate the  justness  and  rightness  of  war  as  war  must  adopt  a 
higher  point  of  view,  the  point  of  view  of  huinanily.  Hut  in 
this  case  a  war  seems  neither  just  nor  right  unless  it  in  some 
way  benefits  mankind. 

If  therefore  all  these  discussions  concerning  the  defensive 
character  of  wars  are  absurd,  and  merely  prove  the  absfiice 
of  discerning,  critical  minds  then  every  time  any  one  attempts 
to  justify  his  eagerness  for  war  this  must  be  considered  as 
betokening  that  he  is  somewhat  ashamed  of  himself.  Fur- 
thermore, it  is  a  proof  that  our  views  concerning  war  are 
undergoing  a  change,  and  that  we  are  unconsciously  condemn- 
ing war  for  war's  sake.  A  new  truth  may  even  be  heralded 
by  a  lie. 


182  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

2. — THE  HUMANIZING   OF   WAR 

§  65. — The  Principle  of  Humaneness 

Perhaps  the  most  marked  characteristic  of  modern  wars  is 
tliat  wliile,  on  the  one  hand,  the  scale  on  which  they  are  waged 
is  increasing,  on  the  other  hand,  an  attempt  is  being  made 
to  humanize  warfare.  All  great  men  without  exception  have 
tuld  us  about  the  beauty  of  humaneness.  There  is  nothing 
surprising  in  this,  for,  after  all,  the  conception  of  humaneness 
is  the  logical  deduction  from  the  scientific  fact  of  there  being 
only  one  genus  humanum,  only  one  human  species. 

Among  the  dull  mass  of  mankind  there  is  probably  a  vague 
notion  that  such  ideas  are  great  and  fine,  but  they  are  no  less 
instinctively  felt  to  be  profound  and  terrible.  Hence  men 
substitute  for  this  dangerous  living  conception  the  safe  dead 
symbol  of  a  transcendent,  but  unattainable,  God,  whom  the}"- 
need  neither  resemble  nor  follow.  Thus  the  deification  of 
Christ  in  the  second  century  meant  simply  a  falling  awa^' 
from  Him.  Imitation  of  Christ  had  ceased,  and  a  stage  was 
erected  for  revering  Him. 

Not  one  of  us  but  is  aware  that  society  to-day  does  hateful 
and  inhuman  things,  but  it  is  these  very  things  which  it  is 
thought  possible  to  beautify  by  covering  them  with  a  cloak 
of  love  of  mankind,  about  which  otherwise  no  one  troubled 
their  heads ;  else  it  could  not  have  come  to  pass  that  the  word 
humaneness  is  now  never  used  except  in  discussing  the  in- 
human. No  one  talks  of  treating  his  own  kind  humanely ;  but 
when  there  were  still  slaves,  we  used  to  endeavor  to  be  "hu- 
mane" to  them ;  and  even  now  the  conquerors  of  a  country  are 
"humane"  to  the  conquered. 

No  one  considers  the  question  of  the  desirability  of  main- 
taining the  death-penalty  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  laws 
of  humanity,  but  from  that  of  practical  expediency.  It  must, 
however,  be  "humanely"  carried  out.  The  guillotine  was  a 
"humane"  invention,  and  the  fact  that  we  now  only  shoot, 


HOW  WAR  IS  BEING  METAMORPHOSED      183 

hang,  behead,  or  electrocute  our  fellow-men  proves  how  much 
"more  humane"  we  have  become  since  the  Middle  Ages, 
when  executions  were  sometimes  performed  by  a  wheel. 

Thus  we  have  invented  humane  warfare !  A  general  belief 
prevails,  in  fact,  that  wars  can  be  made  juster  and  less  unpleas- 
ant by  waging  them  according  to  methods  sanctified  by  tradi- 
tion, and  now  also  established  by  the  Geneva  Convention  of 
August  22,  1864,  by  the  Paris  Convention  of  1856,  or  the 
Declaration  of  London  of  1908,  by  the  First  or  Second  Hague 
Convention  (of  1899  and  1907),  or  by  some  other  mutual 
agreement. 

True,  some  juggling  with  words  is  still  needful.  War  in 
general  and  in  principle  substitutes  might  for  right,  as  all 
great  military  writers,  Clausewitz,  for  instance,  quite  candidly 
admit  as  something  which  goes  without  saying.  Consequently, 
all  manner  of  artifices  must  be  resorted  to  in  order  to  bring 
iu  the  right.  Thus  Kahl,  the  well-known  authority  on  crim- 
inal law,  lays  it  down  quite  simply  that  "war  is  a  struggle  of 
one  state  against  another,  but  not  murder  committed  by  one 
human  being  upon  another."  On  this  principle  he  adds,  the 
humaneness  of  modern  wars  is  based. 

Now,  these  arc  at  best  empty  words,  for  as  yet  no  one  has 
discovered  how  to  carry  on  war  between  one  country  and  an- 
other without  killing  human  beings  in  so  doing.  It  might  be 
said  that  it  is  man's  business  to  find  out  how  to  fight  his  wars 
without  needing  to  kill  persons.  But,  then,  modern  warfare 
would  have  to  be  condemned,  since  it  is  unthinkable  without 
slaughter  on  both  sides  and  without  one  man  murdering  an- 
other. In  principle  this  view  has  always  been  put  forward 
even  by  the  supporters  of  war.  William  Lloyd  Garrison, 
founder  of  the  "Non-resistance  Movement,"  scoffed  at  such 
humbug  when  he  wrote:  "A  man  must  not  kill,  else  he  is  a 
murderer.  Two,  ten,  or  a  hundred  men  are  murderers  if  they 
kill.  But  a  nation  may  kill,  and  for  ten  thousand  men  to 
murder  one  another  is  even  a  good  and  praiseworthy  action."  ^ 

1  I  have  not  liis  exact  words  by  me. — Translator. 


184  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

Having  stated  this  fact,  he  then  innocently  asks  how  many 
hiinian  hei))gs  must  there  really  he  for  them  to  be  allowed  to 
break  God's  command^ 

Victor  Hugo  likewise  asks,  perhaps  still  more  pointedly: 
"When  will  nations  realize  that  to  magnify  a  crime  can  never 
make  it  smaller?  If  killing  is  really  wrong,  then  it  cannot 
possibly  be  an  extenuating  circumstance  that  it  was  done  on 
a  large  scale ;  if  stealing  is  disgraceful,  then  there  can  be 
nothing  glorious  in  taking  a  province." 

In  La  Rochefoucauld's  "^laximes"*  the  same  opinion  oc- 
curs, ironically  put:  "II  y  a  des  crimes  cjui  deviennent  in- 
nocents et  mcme  glorieux  par  leur  eclat,  leur  nombre  et  leur 
exces.  De  la  vient  que  les  voleries  publiques  sont  des 
habilites,  et  que  prendre  des  provinces,  s'appelle  faire  des  con- 
quetes. ' ' 

And  now  let  us  see  what  a  German  has  to  say.  Schiller  puts 
similar  words  into  the  mouth  of  his  Ficsco:  "It  is  disgrace- 
ful to  empty  a  purse,  impudent  to  embezzle  a  million,  but  in- 
expressibly grand  to  steal  a  crown.  The  shame  decreases  with 
the  increase  of  the  sin."  Schiller's  Genoese  character,  it  is 
tnie,  does  not  mean  this  ironically,  but  he,  too,  has  to  die, 
and  just  because  he  has  said  this. 

Thus  English,  French,  and  German  men  of  letters  seem  to 
have  agreed  upon  this  question.  Above  all  in  Germany,  the 
land  of  justice,  this  reflection  frequently  occurs  in  one  form 
or  another.  For  instance,  Johann  Gottfried  Seume  -  has  the 
following  striking  lines: 

Wenn  Banditen  nur  mit  Dolehen  morden, 
Bleicht  man  ihren  Scluidel  auf  dem  Holz. 
Aber  wenn  der  Heldentross  in  Horden 
Lander  wiirgt,  so  sind  die  Helden  stolz. 

1  La  Rochefoucauld:     "Maximes  et  reflexions  morales,"  179.T. 

2  J.  G.  Seume,  "Aus  der  Elegie  auf  einem  Feste  zu  Warschau," 
("From  an  Elegj'  on  a  Warsaw  Fort"),  1794.  8eume  knew  sonietliinjif 
of  war,  liaving  fouLfht  in  tlie  American  War  of  Independence,  although 
as  a  German  constrained  to  figlit  on  the  side  of  the  English  oppressors. 


HOW  WAR  IS  BEING  METAMORPHOSED      185 

Durch  der  Politiken  sebiefe  Brille 
1st  MoralitJit  ein  PossenspicI, 
Und  Gereclitigkeit  nur  eine  Grille, 
Die  in  Pbilosophenschadel  fiel. 

Friedrich  Ilebbel  ^  phrases  it  still  more  pathetically  when 
he  says  mankind  cannot  but  blush  for  its  worst  members : 

Der  Rauber  braucbt  die  Faust  nur  hm  und  wieder, 
Der  Morder  treibt  sein  Werk  nieht  obne  Grauen, 
Du  hast  das  Amt  zu  rauben  und  zu  toten ! 

§  66. — The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Noble  War 

The  privilege  of  theoretically  explaining  how  it  may  be 
right  to  apply  force  was,  however,  reserved  for  our  own  times. 
We  used  to  be  content  to  describe  the  formalities  connected 
with  placing  might  before  right  as  legal,  or  at  any  rate  as  fair. 

From  time  immemorial  endeavors  have  been  made  to  draft 
rules  which  would  enable  an  enemy  country  to  be  decorously 
destroyed.  In  so  doing  the  false  analogy  of  "peaceful  com- 
petition" has  often  been  quoted,  or,  as  was  done  recently  by 
the  German  Emperor,  Chrysippos  s  '  words  repeated,  that  ''in 
running  a  race  not  even  the  ruinier  must  lay  a  hand  on  his 
competitor's  shoulder,  or  put  out  a  leg  to  trip  him  up." 

But  even  for  sports  these  rules  fluctuate,  and  the  Idi  Jidzu 
allows  a  leg  to  be  put  out.  War  is  assuredly  no  sport,  but 
deadly  earnest,  and  the  essential  distinction  between  sport 
and  serious  light  is  that  in  the  latter  there  is  no  doubt  about 
its  being  allowable  to  put  out  a  leg;  at  all  events,  ii  is  done. 

Whoever  abides  by  rules  and  regulations,  however,  "saves 
his  face,"  and  accordingly  there  has  always  been  a  code  of 
honor  for  belligerents;  and  the  more  horrible  the  methods  of 
warfare  and  the  more  highly  civilized  the  combatants,  the 
more  stress  was  laid  on  its  outward  application.  "Thus  in 
the  savage  M-ars  of  the  Diadochi  a  chivalry  was  obsen'able 

1  Frierlricli    Hcbbel,    "I")ie   menarhlirhe   Gespllsohaft   am   Schleideweg" 
("Human  Socipty  at  the  Parlin^r  of  the  Ways"),  1841. 
^Cf.  Cicero  'i')e  Officiis,"  Book  III,  Chap."  10. 


186  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

seldom  found  otherwise  in  fighting  in  ages  long  past. ' '  ^  This 
code  of  honor,  however,  varied  very  greatly.  In  Alexander's 
time  night  attacks  seem  to  have  been  proscribed.  At  any 
rate,  he  is  reported  to  have  said  to  Polyperchon,  who  advised 
him  to  attack  Darius  by  night,  that  "he  would  rather  have  to 
bewail  a  defeat  than  bluvsh  for  a  victory"  ("malo  me  fortunae 
poeniteat,  (juam  victoriae  pudeat").- 

The  Florentines  considered  surprise  attacks  improper.  At 
any  rate,  Machiavelli '  says  how,  four  weeks  before  declaring 
war,  they  rang  the  "^lartinella,"  a  particular  bell  kept  for 
the  purpose ;  Avhile  as  for  the  ancient  Teutons,  it  is  known 
that  they  made  sure  that  wind  and  sun  were  equally  in  favor 
of  themselves  and  their  enemies. 

The  ancient  Islamites  were  not  allowed  to  wage  war  in  the 
holy  month  of  Rhamasan,  and  in  Christian  countries  not  so 
long  since  it  was  the  general  custom  for  fighting  to  cease  on 
Sundays  and  holidays.  Similar  customs  are  narrated  of  many 
other  peoples,  but  they  seem  to  have  been  merely  exceptions, 
resorted  to  when  victory  was  believed  to  be  assured.  In  any 
case,  no  such  scruples  prevented  Alexander  from  crossing  the 
Danube  by  night  in  order  to  surprise  the  Getes,  whom  other- 
wise he  was  unable  to  conquer,  or  from  similarly  attacking 
the  careless  Illyrians  by  night.  The  Florentines,  indeed, 
never  had  much  opportunity  of  ringing  the  .Martinella,  for  in 
their  palmy  days  they  chiefly  devoted  themselves  to  science 
and  art,  and  did  not  wage  any  serious  wars  until  the  days  of 
the  republic  were  numbered.  Consequently  they  could  not 
become  exi)ert  military  strategists ;  but,  after  all,  Florence  did 
produce  Machiavelli,  and  even  supposing  him  to  have  been 
as  utterly  unscrupulous  as  we  were  taught  at  school,  yet  the 
tendencies  of  his  "seiven  books  on  the  arts  of  war"  and  of 
his  "Prince"  are  very  much  against  any  such  things  as  Mar- 

1  W.  Wagner,  "Hellas,  Land  und  Volk  der  alten  Griechen,"  II,  p.  662. 
Leipsic. 

2QiiintiiR  Curtius  TV,  13. 

3  Machiavelli,  "Istorie  fiorentine":  Florence,  1532. 


HOW  WAR  IS  BEING  METAMORPHOSED      187 

tinella  bells.  Even  that  greatly  extolled  Teuton  Hermann 
von  Clieniskia,  departing  from  what  was  supposed  to  be  Ger- 
man tradition,  contrived  skilfully  to  exploit  the  climatic  condi- 
tions of  the  Teutoburg  wood  to  his  own  advantage.  In  order 
to  be  able  to  make  war  even  in  the  holy  month,  Mohammed 
simply  modified  his  religion,  and  Sunday  rest  in  warfare  has 
long  been  abolished.  Indeed,  despite  all  the  pope's  efforts, 
it  was  not  possible  to  induce  the  belligerents  to  have  a  brief 
armistice  to  keep  Christmas,  when,  according  to  Christian 
tradition,  the  angels  announced  "peace  on  earth." 

Fine  words  in  general  were  always  chiefly  reserved  for  of- 
ficial ministerial  utterances.  In  practice  Lysander's^  saying 
was  followed,  that,  "if  a  lion's  skin  is  not  enough,  a  fox's  hide 
must  be  taken."  If  strength  did  not  suffice,  then  a  little  craft 
was  resorted  to  as  well. 

Any  one  trusting  too  much  to  international  rules  of  war; 
any  one  who  went  as  a  flag-of-truce  nmn  to  the  enemy,  as  for 
instance  Count  Montfort  went  to  the  Count  von  Nassau  at 
the  defense  of  the  Pont-a-i\Iousson,  which  has  again  become 
celebrated  of  late,  was  only  accounted  a  fool,  and  taken  pris- 
oner.- Similarly  even  Napoleon  on  the  Bellcrophoii  did  not 
find  that  "hospitality"  for  which  he  had  hoped,  and  which  he 
wa.s  perhaps  entitled  to  expect. 

In  reality  it  has  always  been  thus.  The  oldest  war  was  de- 
cided by  a  horse  being  smuggled  in,  and  Socrates 's  pupil, 
Xenophun,  in  his  "Cyropiedia"  recommends  man}'  and  abom- 
inable military  stratagems,  and,  what  is  more,  in  his  "Ana- 
basis" he  applies  them.  The  Japanese  attacked  the  Russian 
fleet  without  having  declared  war;  the  Emden  stuck  on  a 
fourth  funnel;  the  English  use  the  flags  of  neutral  countries, 
etc.^  But  every  one  considers  his  own  particular  stratagem 
allowable,  and  only  those  of  the  enemy  not  allowable. 

1  Cf.  Plutarch's  "Lysaiider,"  C.  IV,  c. 

2  Cf .  Montaigne's  "Essais,"  Livre  I,  Cliap.  5,  1580.  ("Wlu'tlier  thf 
captaine  of  a  place  besieu:e(l  ttiiylit  to  sallie  forth  to  parlie.'") 

3  Even   Dr.   Xicolai  does  not  seem  always   above  repeating  unproved 


188  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

Non  armis  sed  vitiis  certaiur — war  is  not  waged  with  weap- 
ons but  with  crimes.     The  victor  is  always  right. 

Fu  il  vincer  sempremai  laudabile  cosa 
Vincasi  o  per  fortuna,  o  per  ingenio.^ 

And  since  this  is  so,  and  since  strategy  evidently  always 
succeeds  better  than  strength,  and  nothing  matters  but  success, 
wars  in  all  civilized  nations  are  gradually  becoming  more 
horrible  and  uuchivalrous. 

The  "noble  war"  between  Cajsar  and  Pompey,  in  which 
neither  general  ever  forgot  his  respect  for  the  other,  was  fol- 
lowed by  the  struggle  between  the  triumvirs  and  Caisar's  mur- 
derers, which  was  carried  on  with  every  kind  of  slander  and 
contemptibleness.  And  will  any  one  deny  the  Franco-Prus- 
sian War  having  been  more  chivalrous  than  that  of  1914  ? 

Treaties,  however  sacred,  make  no  difference,  for,  as  Beth- 
mann-HoUweg  quite  rightly  told  the  British  ambassador,  in 
war-time  they  are  scraps  of  paper.  In  actual  fact,  even  now 
violations  of  the  so-called  Geneva  Convention  are  the  order  of 
the  day  in  all  armies.  Doctors,  military  hospitals,  and 
churches  are  fired  upon  as  often  as  "tactical  conditions"  re- 
quire. Men  anxious  to  surrender  are  killed,  either  "because 
the  enemy  abuses  the  white  flag,"  or  even  without  any  ex- 
cuse, merely  in  obedience  to  instructions  to  "give  no  quar- 
ter. ' '  Furthermore,  every  one  is  killed  now  if,  in  view  of  the 
situation  in  general,  it  may  be  taken  for  granted  that  they 
would  surrender  if  only  they  were  asked.  Within  the  same 
category  of  actions  must  be  included  the  dropping  of  bombs 
by  airmen  on  undefended  towns,  and  likewise  the  sinking  of 
trading-vessels  without  allowing  the  crews  time  to  save  their 
lives.  No  one  can  be  reproached  for  such  actions;  they  are 
the  laws  or,  rather,  the  customs,  of  war;  and  it  is  no  mere 
chance  that  both  the  most  modern  weapons  of  war  have  made 

and   unprovable   statements   of   the   German   press   during  this   war. — • 
Translator. 

1  Ariosto,  "Orlando  Furioso,"  Canto  XV,  v.  1.     151G. 


HOW  WAR  IS  BEING  METAMORPHOSED      189 

it  possible  still  further  to  enhauce  the  horrors  of  war.  "We 
have  not  got  used  to  such  weapons  yet,"  it  is  alleged,  whieh 
of  all  the  surprises  afforded  by  this  war  seems  to  me  the  most 
melancholy. 

Two  innocent,  age-old  dreams  of  mankind  are  now  fulfilled, 
man,  being  the  only  genuine  tribion,^  has  used  his  brain  for 
the  invention  of  contrivances  which  make  of  him  both  a  bird 
and  a  fish,  for  he  is  master  of  both  the  heights  and  the  depths. 
He  can  fly  over  frontiers  and  dive  under  them.  The  idea 
germinates  in  the  heads  of  the  fortunate  inventors,  and  the 
frontiers  collapse ;  and  what  makes  the  inventors  still  prouder 
is  the  consciousness  of  having  promoted  not  merely  technical 
science,  but  also  the  brotherhood  of  man.  But,  lo !  the  mili- 
tary commandeer  the  invention,  and  use  it  solely  to  carry  war 
over  tliose  frontiers  hitherto  erected  against  it  by  man's  free 
will. 

How  little  specialists  thought  of  such  a  possibility  before 
the  war  came  and  more  or  less  disturbed  their  mental  balance 
may  be  shown  by  a  single  instance.  A  few  years  ago,  when 
Sir  Arthur  Conan  Doyle  -  warned  England  to  be  prepared 
for  emergencies,  urging  that  with  the  help  of  submarines  her 
supplies  might  be  cut  off  and  her  people  starved  out,  Admiral 
C.  C.  Penrose  Fitzgerald  wrote  that  he  considered  any  such 
forward-looking  measures  unnecessary,  for  he  did  not  believe 
that  any  civilized  nation  would  torpedo  uimrmed  and  defense- 
less trading-vessels. 

Poor,  sentimental  Fitzgerald!  So  you,  too,  thought  war 
was  a  game  to  be  played  in  accordance  with  the  rules  of  some 
congress  or  other,  and  now  thousands  of  people  nuist  pay  for 
your  folly.  But  it  may  be  that  there  are  still  people  who 
would  rather  have  been  wrong  with  old  Fitzgerald  than  have 
won  a  victory  by  means  of  submarines. 

1  Amphibion  is  an  animal  living  in  two  elements;  as  the  frog,  for 
instance,  lives  in  the  water  and  on  land  A  tril)iun  is  one  living  in 
three  elt-ments,  as  man  can  now  do,  and  man  only. 

2  Conan  Doyle.  "Danger!  A  Story  of  England's  Peril."  Publiahed  in 
1011  in  the  "Strand  Magazine." 


190  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

§  67. — The  Value  of  Humanitarian  Effort 

Despite  all  these  absurdities,  deep  meaning  and  justifica- 
tion underlie  all  efforts,  even  those  of  the  lowest  nations,  to 
make  it  appear  as  if  there  were  a  chivalrous  side  to  war. 
Even  the  military  honor  of  barbarians,  for  instance,  forbids 
the  use  of  poisoned  weapons,  though  in  the  ease  of  these  primi- 
tive folk  this  was  not  agreed  upon  by  any  convention,  but 
corresponded  tQ  deep-rooted  and  at  the  time  very  valuable 
instincts. 

The  fighting  on  the  plains  of  Troy  and  even  the  knightly 
battles  of  the  Middle  Ages  consisted  mainly  in  hand-to-hand 
fighting,  in  which  the  object  was  to  vanquish  your  opponent 
by  physical  valor  and  skill.  A  poisoned  lance-point  would 
then  have  meant  that  victory  would  have  been  not  to  the 
better  warrior,  but  to  him  who  had  contrived  merely  slightly 
to  scratch  his  adversary.  Hence  the  horror  of  "cowardly 
murder  by  poison,"  which  is  an  innate  and  ineradicable  in- 
stinct of  all  normal  human  beings. 

For  like  reasons  formerly  the  "insidious  bow"  was  pro- 
scribed in  the  wars  of  Teutonic  peoples,  and  the  Second  Lat- 
eran  Council  in  1139  forbade  the  use  of  the  crossbow,  of  course 
only  among  Christians,  To  cause  the  death  of  heretics  by 
this  means  was  permissible.^ 

Even  then  this  was  of  very  slight  avail,  for  only  fifty  years 
later  Richard  Coeur  de  Lion  founded  the  first  Crossbow  Shoot- 
ers' Companies,  and  the  crossbow  soon  became  the  favorite 
weapon  of  the  Germans.  It  must  be  admitted,  however,  that 
these  nations,  in  thus  disregarding  the  papal  injunctions,  gave 
proof  of  a  sound  instinct;  for  even  then  fighting  was  begin- 
ning to  develop  into  battles  involving  numbers  of  human  be- 
ings and  in  which  chivalry  could  no  longer  exercise  any 
selective  influence.  Now  and  not  till  now  did  such  prohibi- 
tions become  meaningless,  for  an  enemy  miles  away  is  fired 

2  A  Demmin,  "Die  Kriegswaffen"  ("Weapons  of  War"),  1869:  Leip- 
aic.     P.  69. 


HOW  WAR  IS  BEING  METAMORPHOSED      191 

upon  or  the  trenches  are  "peppered"  with  machine-guns, 
more  or  less  at  a  venture,  and  therefore  it  must  be  a  mere 
chance  whether  any  particular  man  is  hit.  The  plain  truth 
is  that  the  more  effective  a  projectile  is  to-day,  the  better  it 
is  for  use  in  war. 

Yes,  say  the  advocates  of  these  wonderful  humane  theories, 
but  all  that  is  wanted  is  to  put  the  enemy  out  of  action ;  he 
ought  not  to  be  killed  unnecessarily.  In  their  wars  against 
the  Hottentots,  the}-  say,  the  British  noticed  that  these  sav- 
ages, if  wounded  only  in  the  arm  or  even  in  the  body  with 
our  modern  small-caliber  rifles,  often  continued  to  advance. 
In  such  case  it  was  needful  to  have  more  powerful  rifles ;  but 
in  Europe  they  are  not  needed. 

Now,  first,  it  often  happens  with  us  that  wounded  men 
continue  to  fight  or  at  any  rate  to  shoot,  and  in  particular 
experience  shows  that  these  slightly  wounded  men  return  to 
the  front  after  a  few  weeks.  In  Germany  eighty  per  cent, 
of  all  men  included  in  war  losses  are  said  to  be  "slightly 
wounded."  Now,  even  if  they  are  out  of  action  for  the  time 
being,  they  are  by  no  means  incapable  of  taking  any  further 
part  in  the  war,  and  indeed  they  continue  fit  for  service  until 
at  length,  even  without  Dumdum  bullets,  they  are  shot  dead 
or  crippled.  At  best,  therefore,  a  "humane  hidleV  may  be 
compared  for  mercifulness  with  cutting  off  a  dog's  tail  bit 
by  bit.  The  operation  is  not  over  till  a  certain  amount  of 
the  tail  is  cut  off,  or,  as  the  case  may  be,  a  certain  proportion 
of  the  nation  is  out  of  action. 

Even  those  who  do  not  or  will  not  see  the  brutal  logic  of 
this,  however,  ought  to  be  ashamed  thus  to  tamper  with  the 
conception  of  humaneness.  To-day,  when  all  the  most  refined 
technical  methods  are  in  use,  when  wolves'  lairs  are  dug,  in 
which  soldiers  get  impaled  on  stakes,  and  then  slowly  expire; 
when  barbed-wire  entanglements  are  constructed,  which  are 
then  "cleared"  with  machine-guns  when  enough  "stuff"  has 
got  caught  in  them :  when  wire  trellises  are  made,  charged  with 
electricity,  and  men  left  hanging  dead  in  them  like  flies;  when 


192  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

the  enemy's  trenches  are  syringed  with  petroleum,  so  as  to 
burn  the  people  in  them,  or  their  unsuspecting  occupants 
blown  into  the  air  by  subterranean  mines;  to-day,  when 
poisoned  bombs  are  used;  when  "airmen's  arrows,"  dropped 
from  the  air,  pin  the  enemy,  "like  a  frog,''  flat  to  the  ground ; 
to-day,  Avhen  shrapnel  and  grenades,  prepared  with  the  ut- 
most care  in  view  of  an  explosion  on  the  largest  possible  scale, 
are  employed,  and  human  beings  are  torn  to  pieces  therewdth ; 
to-day  it  is  insisted  that  the  Dumdum  bullet  is  the  acme  of 
brutality.  A  German  journalist,  Herr  Binder,  calls  it  "besti- 
ally cruel,"  "one  of  the  most  barbarous  methods  of  warfare 
known  to  history,"  as  it  is  put  in  the  telegram  of  his  Majesty 
the  German  Emperor  to  President  Wilson. 

The  immense  excitement  caused  in  September  by  this  Dum- 
dum bullet  question,  whereby  even  the  German  Emperor  was 
induced  to  take  the  unusual  step  of  addressing  a  formal  pro- 
test to  the  President  of  the  United  States,  can  be  explained 
only  by  man's  instinctive  craving  for  genuine  humaneness — a 
craving  which  has  assumed  such  proportions,  owing  to  this 
most  cruel  and  horrible  of  all  wars,  that  even  the  smallest 
"token  of  humaneness"  appears  worth  striving  after. 

Even  Sterniekel,  the  murderer  who  committed  in  cold  blood 
a  dozen  murders  and  robberies  combined,  was  proud  of  never 
having  caused  the  death  of  a  child,  thinking  this  a  sufficient 
concession  to  justice.  Thus  in  every  human  being  there  is 
some  trace  of  a  sense  of  shame,  aud  even  the  combatants  to- 
day say,  "True,  we  do  murder  and  set  on  fire,  plunder  and 
pillage,  and  offend  against  the  laws  of  Christian  and  human 
justice,  but — we  do  not  use  Dumdum  bullets'' ! 

Such  reasoning  is  not  merely  foolish,  but  even  dangerous, 
for  it  makes  men  think  that  war  is  consistent  with  humaneness, 
and  thus  helps  them  to  become  accustomed  to  a  horrible  state 
of  things.  But  we  must  not  become  accvstomed  to  anything 
of  the  sort.  If  we  want  to  remain  members  of  the  society 
of  human  beings  we  must  consider  war  as  at  any  rate  some- 
thing extraordinary  and  abnormal.  '  ]\Iodern  humanitarian  en- 


HOW  WAR  IS  BEING  METAMORPHOSED      193 

deavors  to  lessen  the  horrors  of  war  are,  it  is  true,  frequently 
charity  misdirected,  but  still  they  do  proceed  from  charity, 
and  a  charity  which,  as  might  be  proved,  is  fundamentally 
sound. 

Now,  just  as  the  war  instinct  shows  that  courage  and  love 
of  action  still  survive  in  mankind, — courage  and  action  which 
only  need  directing  into  other  channels, — so  does  this  longing 
for  humaneness  prove  the  existence  of  something  in  mankind 
which  is  a  guaranty  for  the  future.  AVe  may,  for  instance, 
consider  rules  about  Dumdum  bullets  virtually  useless  and 
possibly  even  ridiculous;  yet  we  may  and  even  ought  to 
do  everything  in  our  power  to  insure  the  observance  of  such 
rules.  However  small  may  be  the  concession  made,  it  still  is 
a  concession,  and  we  are  thereby  rid  of  a  bit  of  war. 

From  this  point  of  view  even  the  Geneva  Convention  and 
the  prohibition  of  Dumdum  bullets  are  valuable;  and  it  is 
some  satisfaction  to  be  able  to  state  that  no  nation  seems  pur- 
posely to  have  infringed  this  prohibition.  True,  such  bullets 
have  been  found  in  the  hands  of  subjects  of  all  nations. 
Dumdum  bullets,  indeed,  are  manufactured  by  government 
ammunition  factories  in  all  countries,^  for  hunting  and  other 
purposes  for  soldiers'  rifles.  Whenever  towns  are  conquered, 
parcels  of  such  bullets  are  of  course  found,  in  Government 
wrappers.  Besides  this,  it  has  happened  in  all  armies  that  a 
few  men,  particularly  officers  who  procure  their  own  ammuni- 
tion, were  intentionally  provided  with  such  cartridges:  but 
it  is  one  thing  to  make  this  statement  and  quite  another  to 
assert,  as  has  been  done  by  both  belligerents,  that  the  enemy 
systematically  makes  use  of  such  bullets. 

There  are  other  reasons,  however,  why  such  regulations  are 
valuable.  They  are  self-imposed  limitations,  adherence  to 
which  is  a  recognition  in  principle  of  the  fact  that  the  attain- 
ment of  its  objects  in  war  is  not  a  nation's  highest  goal. 

In  1839,  when  Belgium's  "perpetual  neutrality"  was  pro- 

iThe  official  name  for  them  in  Germany  is  '^Flnlhmantelgeschosse,'' 
which  might  be  rendered  as  "half-length  cheat  bullets  " — Translator. 


194  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

claimed,  Germany  and  France  in  particular  made  war  be- 
tween each  other  more  difficult ;  and  from  that  day  forth  they 
knew  that  an  impassable  wall  was  erected  along  the  frontier 
of  this  neutral  land — a  wall  based  on  their  own  agreement. 

In  1856,  when  the  Declaration  of  Paris  insured  captured 
vessels  being  brought  before  a  proper  prize  court,^  man  made 
it  impossible  for  hiinself  clandestinely  to  sink  vessels,  of  which 
the  old  naval  ballads  of  all  seafaring  peoples  used  to  boast 
as  a  heroic  action.^ 

In  1899,  when  the  Second  Declaration  of  the  Hague  Con- 
vention forbade  the  use  of  asphyxiating  or  poisonous  gases, 
mankind  voluntarily  deprived  itself  of  one  of  the  most  ef- 
fective weapons,  and  one  which,  with  the  ever-increasing 
discoveries  of  modem  technical  science,  promised  every  day  to 
become  more  valuable. 

But  whatever  our  opinion  of  the  value  or  importance  of 
such  conventions,  the  fact  remains  that,  once  they  have  been 
concluded,  discussion  about  them  must  cease ;  for  henceforth, 
if  they  are  violated,  not  merely  is  harm  done  to  the  enemy, 
but  the  violator's  own  honor  is  irreparably  injured.  Nothing 
in  this  war,  therefore,  is  so  deplorable  as  the  violation  of  Bel- 
gium neutrality,  submarine  warfare,  and  the  use  of  asphyxiat- 
ing gases ;  for  thereby  not  merely  are  human  lives  destroyed, 
but  human  honor. 

3. — THE   COMPARATIVE  RETROGRADENESS  OF  WAR 

§  68. — Reasons  for  This 

It  takes  two  players  to  play  chess,  and  to  play  at  war  it 
takes  only  two  generals,  though  the  armies  in  this  case  do  not 

1  The  details  were  enacted  for  Germany  by  the  law  of  May  3,  1884. 
'"Short  proceedings"  are  perhaps  allowable  on  board  captured  vessels  in 
certain  circumstances,  but  at  any  rate  their  papers  must  be  properly 
examined. 

2  Cf.  for  instance  the  English  ballad,  "There  was  a  ship  that  sailed," 
in  which  the  captain's  boy  swims  up  to  and  secretly  bores  a  hole  in  a 
Spanish  galleon. 


HOW  WAR  IS  BEING  METAMORPHOSED      195 

consist  of  wood  or  ivory  figures,  but  of  flesh-and-blood  human 
beings.  True,  of  late  even  war  has  become  an  industrial  un- 
dertaking, and  thus  even  here  machinery  to  a  certain  extent 
competes  with  the  laboring  classes,  so  much  so  that  those  per- 
sons ever  anxious  to  find  catchwords,  and  wrong  catchwords, 
for  everything  have  even  spoken  of  a  '"machine  war."  But 
mankind  has  not  yet  got  so  far.  In  otlier  branches  of  life 
machinery,  it  is  true,  has  become  marvelously  independent  of 
assistance  from  human  hands;  but  in  war  the  musketeer  is 
still  more  important  than  the  musket,  and  the  gunner  than  the 
gun. 

That  war  should  be  so  surprisingly  retrograde,  considering 
the  high  standard  of  our  technical  knowledge,  is  due  to  quite 
simple  and  universal  human  characteristics.  First,  there  cer- 
tainly does  still  lurk  in  men's  minds  an  instinctive  feeling 
that  war  to-day  is  some  kind  of  degenerate  sport,  which  is 
scarcely  worth  while  unless  one  is  actually  there  oneself. 
Moreover,  sportsmen  have  an  "antipathy"'  to  all  modern  im- 
provements. Thus  a  "true  yachtsman"  would  rather  be  in 
constant  danger  of  capsizing  than  get  a  practical  patent  reef. 
There  are  many  more  of  these  harmless  sportsman-like  preju- 
dices, such  as  the  huntsman's  preference  for  his  double-bar- 
reled gun  rather  than  a  modern  "Browning,"  and  the  old 
angler's  preference  for  his  lob-worm  rather  than  an  artificial 
fly.  A  rider  of  the  good  old  school  despised  the  comfortable 
English  trot,^  which  until  recently  was  actually  forbidden  in 
the  German  Arm}';  while,  as  for  the  South  Sea  Islander,  he 
does  not  even  think  of  exchanging  his  bow  for  a  modern  rifle. 

Now,  the  soldier  takes  a  similar  point  of  view,  thereby  mak- 
ing himself  more  indispensable,  and  hindering  the  develop- 
ment of  military  science.  Another  instance  of  the  soldier's 
tendency  to  lag  behind  the  times  is  the  following.  Two  re- 
markably practical  inventions,  such  as  torpedoing  in  the  dark 
and  destroying  whole  regiments  by  poisonous  gases,  meet  with 

1  For  a  year  it  has  been  called  a  '"light  trot,"  but  riding-masters 
eometimes  make  slips  of  the  tongue. 


196  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

considerable  resistance,  for  the  soldier  continues  to  lag  behind 
technicians  and  chemists,  who  are  bound  by  no  chivalrous 
traditions. 

What  has  chiefly  stood  in  the  way  of  military  science  being 
vigorously  developed,  however,  is  that  the  modern  soldier  is 
so  clieap.  Formerly  a  soldier  had  a  certain  value.  A  gen- 
eral had,  let  us  say,  fifty  thousand  soldiers,  and  used  them, 
and  when  they  were  all  shot  down,  the  war  was  simply  lost. 
Consequently,  he  was  careful  how  he  made  war,  and  sacrificed 
as  few  men  as  possible.  Now,  however,  he  has  an  inexhaust- 
ible reservoir  to  draw  upon  in  the  shape  of  the  nation  as  a 
w^hole;  and  wherever  this  reserv^oir  is  largest,  as  in  the  case 
of  the  Russians,  then,  judging  from  the  reports  of  the  gen- 
eral staff,  men  are  sacrificed  most  senselessly  and  cold-blood- 
edly. Even  in  Germany,  especially  in  the  early  days  of  the 
war,  there  was  not  much  economy  of  human  lives,  at  all  events 
in  comparison  with  former  wars.  Cheap  human  material, 
however,  is  always  and  everywhere  used  for  all  manner  of 
things  that  could  quite  well  be  done  by  machinery,  just  as 
the  cheapness  of  the  coolie  in  China  at  present  has  hitherto 
prevented  modem  machinery  being  used  to  any  very  great 
extent. 

In  naval  warfare  alone,  with  its  torpedoes,  floating  mines, 
etc.,  machinery  is  now  perforce  somewhat  used  to  replace  hu- 
man labor,  although  in  this  case  ships  are  involved  of  which 
each  dozen  cost  about  $250,000,000  to  build,  and  therefore 
represent  very  considerable  sums. 

Moreover,  war  is  essentially  unproductive.  "Necessity 
teaches  man  to  pray,"  it  is  said,  and  perhaps  it  really  has 
taught  many  to  pray.  But,  at  all  events,  necessity  teaches 
man  to  work,  and  necessity  is  the  mother  of  invention;  for, 
as  Goethe  says,  ''necessity  is  the  best  counselor."  Professor 
Ostwald  even  thinks  that  necessity  was  the  mother  of  all  great 
inventions,  because  the  only  inventions  ever  made  have  been 
those  necessitated  by  circumstances. 

Now,  necessity  being  so  good  a  teacher,  it  might  be  thought 


HOW  WAR  IS  BEING  METAMORPHOSED      197 

that  the  great  necessities  of  war  must  necessarily  have  pro- 
duced yreat  inventions.  This,  however,  is  not  the  case,  for 
the  method  and  purpose  of  war  are  to  appropriate  the  fruits 
of  others'  work  without  working  oneself.  War  therefore, 
does  not  teach  man  to  work,  and  consequently  does  not  teach 
him  to  invent  either,  inventions  being  always  the  fruit  of 
labor. 

Again,  war  is  generally  merely  a  passing  phase,  and  there 
is  not  time  to  profit  by  the  necessity  it  brings,  which,  more- 
over, is  too  great,  and  too  great  necessity  acts  as  a  cheek.  For 
instance,  arctic  peoples,  who  have  had  to  contend  too  much 
against  the  severity  of  nature,  and  have  produced  no  original 
inventions  of  their  own.  Of  course  if  a  war  lasts  as  long  as 
this  one,  and  absorbs  all  the  intellectual  and  material  forces 
of  the  nations,  it  is  not  surprising  if  there  should  be  a 
few  inventions  while  it  is  going  on.  There  can  be  not  the 
slightest  doubt,  however,  that  future  statistics  will  prove  that 
the  average  annual  number  of  inventions  in  Europe  during 
the  war  was  smaller — much  smaller  in  comparison — than  in 
any  correspondingly  long  period  we  may  select  in  the  last  few 
decades.  At  any  rate,  it  is  a  fact  that  not  a  single  past  war 
has  ever  anywhere  been  the  cause  of  any  noteworthy  invention, 
which  again  is  but  one  more  proof  of  the  comparative  unim- 
portance of  war  for  the  human  race. 

Hunger  and  anxiety  about  daily  bread  have  sought  out 
many  inventions.  They  taught  man  how  to  cultivate  the  soil 
and  how  to  breed  domestic  animals ;  they  invented  the  plow 
and  all  other  agricultural  implements  and  machinery;  they 
taught  man  to  hunt  and  to  fish,  and  even  effected  improve- 
ments in  firearms.  And  it  was  love,  that  other  great  necessity 
to  which  man  is  subject — love  and  the  impulse  to  make  ad- 
vances to  others,  which  led  to  speech  and  writing,  to  the  build- 
ing of  roads,  the  equipment  of  ships,  and  eventually  to  all 
modern  means  of  communication.  War,  however,  as  I  shall 
now  proceed  to  show,  has  virtually  taught  mankind  nothing. 

The  one  astonishing  result  of  this  war  is  that  the  economic 


198  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

distress  caused  by  it  is  not  giving  rise  to  more  inventions ;  but 
this  is  understandable  when  it  is  reflected  that  men  of  high 
attainment  used  to  take  scarcely  any  interest  in  war,  and 
that  workshops  and  laboratories  are  now  mostly  deserted.  In 
particular  the  young  meu,  whose  ideas  are  still  young  and 
new/  are  all  at  the  front. 

Moreover,  upheaval  in  all  commercial  life  must  of  course 
stand  in  the  vrsy  of  any  really  serious  efforts  to  promote  civili- 
zation. 

§  69.— What  Are  the  Facts? 

"When  first  invented,  the  sword,  in  the  true  sense  of  the 
word,  was  meant  for  a  plowshare,  and  not  used  by  men  of 
war  until  later.'  But  now  that  they  had  their  weapon, 
they  were  actually  incapable  of  improving  it;  it  is  an  ascer- 
tained fact,  to  which  Peschel  ^  first  drew  attention,  that  Aveap- 
ons  requiring  some  skill  in  their  management,  such  as  bows 
and  arrows,  have  been  evolved  only  among  hunting  peoples, 
while  agricultural  peoples  fight  with  the  spear,  which  is  much 
easier  to  handle. 

This  continued  to  be  the  case  even  in  historical  times. 
Between  ancient  times  and  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth 
century  war  material  hardly  improved  at  all,  and  military 
science  hardly  developed  at  all.  Even  the  use  of  black  powder 
for  shooting,  which  came  into  vogue  in  Europe  in  the  thir- 
teenth centur\-,  made  little  dift'erence;  and  after  the  first 
blunderbusses  reechoed  at  Grecy  in  1346,  there  was  no  further 
change  in  anything  for  half  a  century. 

^Moreover,  firearms  came  into  use  very  gradually,  and  no- 
where did  they  produce  any  far-reaching  effects.  James  Feni- 
more  Cooper's  Indian  novels  made  us  imagine  that  the  "rifles 

1  As  the  contemporary  Swedish  physiologist  Tigerstadt  has  shown, 
virtually  all  men  of  genius  made  their  principal  discoveries  before  the 
age  of  thirty,  and.  we  may  certainly  add,  before  their  forty-tifth  year. 

-Ci.  Ludwig  Noire's  "Uas  Werkzeug"   ("Tools"). 

sOskar  Peschel's  "Volkerkunde"  ("Ethnology").  1874,  fifth  edition, 
1881,  pp.  183-186. 


HOW  WAR  IS  BEING  METAMORPHOSED      199 

of  the  palefaces"  conquered  the  redman.  There  is  of  course 
some  truth  in  this,  but  the  importance  of  the  rifle  is  over- 
estimated. Cortez,  for  instance,  after  his  " noche  triste" 
(''night  of  sorrow")  had  not  a  single  rifle  left,  and  the  victory 
of  Otuniha^  was  decided  in  his  favor  by  "crossbows  and 
Toledo  swords." 

It  is  likewise  significant  that,  even  at  the  beginning  of  the 
sixteenth  century,  jMaeliiavelli,-  according  to  his  "Art  of 
War,"  would  have  had  half  the  infantry  armed  in  "Roman 
fashion"  with  sword  and  shield.  Of  the  other  troops  he  would 
have  provided  some  "with  pikes,  like  the  Swiss,"  and  some 
with  long-distance  weapons,  such  as  "crossbows  or  muskets." 
In  the  Spanish  armies  shields  were  not  given  up  till  some  time 
in  the  seventeenth  century,  and  in  the  armies  of  the  Thirty 
Years'  War  there  were,  on  an  average,  twice  as  many  pikesmen 
as  musketeers;  conse(iuently  only  about  one  third  of  the  foot 
soldiers  can  have  been  provided  with  firearms.  Only  grad- 
ually did  the  proportion  of  soldiers  with  firearms  increase,  and 
in  the  Wars  of  Liberation  the  first  file  of  the  Prussian  last  line 
—one  third  of  the  whole  number — were  originally  armed  wuth 
pikes.  In  general,  however,  at  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth 
century  the  pike  had  been  replaced  by  the  bayonet,  at  all 
events  in  regular  armies. 

Lances,  or  weapons  resembling  them,  such  as  scythes,  how- 
ever, continued  to  be  used  till  far  on  in  the  nineteenth 
century  in  revolutionary  armies,  volunteer  corps,  and  when- 
ever the  last  line  was  called  up.  Every  one  has  heard  of 
the  Paris  pikesmen  of  the  French  Revolution,  and  of  the 
Polish  and  Hungarian  seythesmen,  and  even  in  this  war,  for 
instance,  in  the  fighting  near  Arras  in  the  autunni  of  1914, 
dismounted  French  cavalrymen,  armed  with  lances,  have  taken 
part  in  infantry  bayonet-fights.  Even  now  there  are  good 
"military  instructors"  who  assert  that  the  most  important 
engagements  are  decided  only  by  hand-to-hand  fighting;  and 

1  July  7,  1520,  over  the  Mexicans. 

-  Maclnavelli's    •Dell'  arte  deila  guerra,"   1535.     1,  VU. 


200  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

if,  owing  to  a  quite  natural  tendency  to  overestimate  modern 
military  science,  tliere  may  have  been  an  inclination  to  doubt 
this,  there  are  our  general  stall'  reports  to  prove  that  in  this 
war  there  really  has  been  a  reversion  to  methods  of  fighting 
which  are  comparatively  very  primitive. 

Thus  on  June  14,  1915,  the  Austrians  attempted  to  destroy 
the  Italians,  as  the  latter  were  advancing  in  the  gorges  of 
the  Cima  Xorre,  by  means  of  boulders,  Avhich  they  hurled  down 
on  them  from  the  rocky  sides  of  the  Belliore.  Now,  history 
teaches  us  that  this  is  a  method  of  fighting  to  which  even  the 
anthropoids  used  to  resort.  Again,  the  German  colonial 
forces  in  East  Africa  are  said  to  have  used  bees  as  a  means  of 
defense,^  which  is  unquestionably  practical,  but  which  had 
been  forgotten  in  Europe  since  the  Thirty  Years'  War,  and, 
as  far  as  I  know,  had  never  been  used  in  the  interv^al  save  by 
a  few  Australian  blacks.  As  to  whether  the  statement  of  our 
general  staff  that  Russian  troops  were  armed  with  "oaken 
dubs  "  is  to  be  taken  literally  or  not,  no  opinion  need  be  offered 
liere.  After  all,  certain  present-day  methods  of  warfare  are 
absolutely  medieval. 

Let  us  consider  how  much  has  been  invented  since  the 
year  13(X).  Compasses,  clocks  and  watches,  thermometers, 
barometers,  telescopes  and  microscopes,  enable  observations  to 
be  made  with  an  accuracy  undreamed  of  before.  From  Ger- 
many the  art  of  printing  spread  over  the  whole  world ;  the 
primitive  weaver's  loom  was  replaced  first  by  Cartwright's 
mechanical  loom,  and  afterward  bj'^  that  of  Jacquard.  The 
magical  science  of  alchemy  became  metamorphosed  into  scien- 
tific chemistry.  (Jalilei  and  Newton  laid  anew  the  base  of 
physics;  the  foundations  of  electrical  knowledge  were  estab- 
lished, and  it  was  speedily  put  to  practical  use  in  the  lightning- 
conductor;  steam-engines  and  balloons  were  invented;  gas  was 
introduced  for  lighting  purposes;  the  technical  processes  of 
glass  and  porcelain  manufacture  were  modernized:  in  short, 

1  Beeliivt's  are  thrown  into  tlie  enemy's  rank^,  and  the  angry  insects 
cause  disorder  among  the  soldiers  by  stinging  them. 


HOW  WAR  IS  BEING  METAMORPHOSED      201 

science  and  technical  knowledge  everywhere  advanced.  War, 
however,  had  neither  part  nor  lot  in  all  this,  albeit  in  this 
period  there  was  no  lack  of  war.  Nor  did  any  one  &ven  take 
any  trouble  to  utilize  a  single  one  of  these  inventions  for 
military  purposes.  IMatters  continued  thus  until  about  the 
end  of  the  eighteenth  or  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century 
national  armies  came  into  existence,  and  the  average  middle- 
cjass  man  had  to  devote  his  wits  to  the  noble  business  of  war- 
fare. This  did  not  have  the  effect  of  making  war  more  crea- 
tive, but  at  all  events  military  men  learned  from  thenceforth 
to  take  advantage  of  inventions  alreadj'-  made. 

Accordingly,  explosives  were  considerably  improved.  In 
1800  an  Englishman,  Edward  Howard,  invented  fulminate  of 
mercury,  and  eighteen  years  later  Egg,  the  engineer,  con- 
structed percussion-caps  from  it.  In  1846  the  German  chem- 
ist Schonbein  invented  gun-cotton,  and  a  French  chemist, 
Sobrero,  the  following  year  invented  nitro-glycerin.  Twenty 
years  later  Alfred  Nobel  produced  the  first  dynamite.  All 
these  inventions,  however,  were  nowise  intended  for  war,  but 
for  mining  and  mining  only ;  and  it  was  almost  as  if  he 
wished  to  atone  for  the  disastrous  use — a  use  which  he  did 
not  intend — made  of  his  invention  for  the  wholesale  destruc- 
tion of  human  beings  that  Nobel  founded  his  peace  prize. 

Meantime  not  only  explosives  were  being  perfected,  but 
also  firearms.  Napoleon's  soldiers  still  fought  with  the  old 
flintlock,  in  which  scarcely  any  improvement  had  been  effected 
since  the  Thirty  Years'  War.  Drevse's  needle-gun  of  1S27, 
Colt's  revolver  of  1831,  the  Mauser  rifie  in  1803,  and  Maun- 
licher's  repeating-rifle  of  1878,  are  all  phases  in  this  new 
development.  At  the  same  time  in  cannon  the  transition  to 
breech-loaders  was  proceeding,  calibers  were  tending  to  be- 
come larger  and  larger,  and  resort  was  being  had  to  technical 
inventions,  such  as  recoiling-barrels.  The  invention  of  the 
Whitehead  torpedo  in  18G7  must  also  not  be  forgotten. 

Tliat  war  had  an  indirect  influence  on  these  improvements 
in  firearms  cannot  perhaps  be  denied,  although  in  war  itself 


202  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

no  imiDrovement  has  ever  been  made ;  but  here  again  it  would 
be  necessary  to  inquire  how  much  must  be  ascribed  to  improve- 
ments in-  guns  for  hunting  purposes.  Even  if  we  set  every- 
thing down  to  war,  however,  this  would  be  the  sum  total  of 
Avhat  war  has  achieved  in  tlie  domain  of  inventions;  and  what 
is  that  in  a  century  of  such  unparalleled  technical  advance  ? 

It  is  true  that  war  has  gradually  learned  to  utili/e  inven- 
tions for  its  own  purposes.  Here,  again,  war  is  a  INIoloch,  de- 
vouring everything,  and  usurping  for  himself  inventions  made 
for  peace.  Just  as  war  commandeers  wheat  and  gold,  so 
does  it  take  possession  of  ideas,  which  is  perhaps  the  worst 
thing  about  it.  The  telegraph  and  the  railway,  steamers  and 
motor-cars,  have  been  drawn  into  its  service.  Hardly  had 
Monier  suggested  making  buildings  of  concrete  than  fortifica- 
tions began  to  be  built  of  it.  Graham  Bell's  telephone  and 
Marconi's  wireless  telegraphy  were  immediately  utilized  for 
war.  When  Schuckert  constructed  his  search-light,  or  Gruson 
or  Krupp  invented  some  new  steel  composite  material,  all 
were  instantly  used  for  some  military  purpose.  Some  few 
modern  inventions,  indeed,  such  as  airships  and  submarines, 
are  used  almost  exclusively  for  war.  If  it  occurs  to  our  mili- 
tary men,  however,  to  use  the  airships  presented  to  them  for 
attacking  England,  they  are  no  more  inventors  on  that  ac- 
count than  Mr.  Brown  when  he  has  his  private  house  connected 
by  telephone  with  his  office. 

§  70. — The  Mischief  of  Overestimating  the  Art  of  War 

To  apply  inventions  in  this  way  is  cheap ;  and  just  because 
the  European  military  spirit  has  suffered  a  great  many  in- 
ventions to  be  reserved  for  military  purposes,  and  because  a 
new  invention  can  scarcely  ever  command  any  goverenment 
assistance  unless  it  seems  as  if  it  might  be  of  some  importance 
in  war,  an  erroneous  impression  might  prevail  that  war  m 
some  way  or  other  promotes  technical  advance.  There  is 
no  doubt  whatever  that  in  a  sense  the  science  of  arms,  which 
is  very  handsomely  supported  by  government,  can  develop 


HOW  WAR  IS  BEING  METAMORPHOSED      203 

in  quite  a  different  way  from  tlie  peaceful  science  of  me- 
chanical construction,  which  is  embarrassed  by  considerations 
of  what  M-ill  pay  and  what  will  not.  Circumstances  have  so 
greatly  favored  the  manufacture  of  iron  plates,  for  instance, 
that  it  has  really  been  the  case  of  many  improvements,  by 
which  the  business  of  iron  foundries  in  general  and,  indeed, 
all  technical  science  have  benefited. 

Hut  it  would  be  wrong  to  call  technical  science  an  enemy 
of  civilization  because  it  has  been  responsible  for  various 
iininlerous  contrivances.  Similarly  it  would  be  wrong  to 
ascribe  to  war  as  war  a  beneficial  etfect  on  technical  science. 
If  government  would  paj'  the  iron  industry  as  much  for  its 
peaceful  products  as  it  now  paj's  for  its  warlike  ones,  the 
results  would  be  fully  as  satisfactory.  True,  the  largest  in- 
comes in  Europe  were  those  of  Krupp,  the  Cannon  King, 
and  Nobel,  the  Dynamite  King ;  but  in  more  peaceful 
America  there  are  wheat  kings,  steel  kings,  pig  kings,  and 
beer  kings. 

Airships  and  aeroplanes  are  a  melancholy  confirmation  of 
the  truth  of  what  has  just  been  said.  They  are  a  new  means 
of  getting  about,  whereby  men  are  brought  closer  together. 
Zarathustra's  dream  of  the  overstepping  of  all  boundaries 
seemed  on  the  eve  of  fulfilment,  and,  lo !  militarism  intervenes 
and  converts  this  admirable  instrument  of  peace  into  a 
weapon  of  war,  albeit  at  present  not  a  very  dangerous  one; 
and  it  seems  as  if  every  future  success  must  have  to  do  with 
war.  We  are  still  under  the  same  delusion  as  that  which 
led  the  youth  athirst  for  knowledge  to  ask  Archimedes  to  be 
good  enough  to  initiate  him  into  the  "divine  art  wherewilli 
he  had  defended  the  walls  of  Syracuse  against  the  Ron)au 
attacking  machinery."  But  we  have  never  yet  understood 
what  Archimedes  meant  by  his  reply  that  art  was  indeed 
"divine,"  but  that  was  ''before  it  was  in  the  service  of  the 
state." 

Inventions  which  serve  a  warlike  purpose  are  no  less  over- 
estimated than  war  itself.     The  invention  of  powder  alone  has 


204  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

actually  passed  into  a  proverb,^  Avhicli  would  never  have  been 
the  case  had  people  known  that  Berthold  Schwarz  did  not  in- 
vent it  for  any  warlike  purpose,  but  that  gunpowder  was  a 
very  ancient  invention  of  the  Chinese,  who  used  it  for  pur- 
poses of  amusement  and  for  fireworks. 

The  enormous  quantities  of  materials  used  in  war  have 
deeply  impressed  man}^  persons,  but  even  from  this  point  of 
view  war  will  not  stand  the  test  of  serious  criticism.  Our 
estimating  a  country's  technical  development  by  the  number 
of  dreadnoughts  which  it  is  able  to  construct  simultaneously 
merely  proves  that  in  our  iron  age  there  is  no  money  for  peace- 
ful works  of  civilization.  Moreover,  large  as  men-of-war  may 
be,  modern  liners  are  larger.  A  forty-two  centimeter 
Morser  is  assuredly  huge,  but  our  own  telescopes,  rotary 
presses,  etc.,  are  still  linger.  Architecture  has  certainly  added 
more  to  its  laurels  by  building  churches  and  modern  market 
buildings  than  by  building  fortifications  and  barracks.  "With 
the  two  and  half  million  cubic  meters  of  stone  from  the 
Pyramid  of  Cheops  alone  it  would  be  possible  to  build  thrice 
over  the  Aurelian  Wall  encircling  the  Eteiiial  City — a  wall 
W'hich  is  one  of  the  most  powerful  defense  works  that  have  ever 
existed.^ 

Even  the  very  extensive  excavations  necessitated  by  mod- 
ern trench  warfare  are  as  nothing  compared  with  what  was 
needed  in  the  construction  of  the  Panama  Canal,  for  instance. 
If  Germany  were  entirely  surrounded  with  a  triple  line  of 
trenches,  each  six  feet  six  inches  deep  by  two  feet  six  inches 
broad,  it  would  only  be  necessary  to  throw  up  20,000,000 
cubic  meters  of  earth,  not  much  more  than  was  dredged  up  out 

i  For  instance,  "Er  hat  das  Pulver  nicht  arfunden'"  (French:  "/i  ?i'a 
pas  inrente  la  poitdre"),  which  may  be  rendered  as  "fie  "11  never  set  the 
Thames  on  fire";  and  "er  ist  keinen  tSchuss  Pulver  wert,"  ''he  is  not 
worth  powder  and  shot." — Translator. 

-  -According  to  Diodorus,  indeed,  15.000,000  cubic  meters  went  to  build 
the  walls  of  Nineveh,  but  his  statements,  as  Uich  and  Ainsworh  have 
shown,  are  pure  invention.  Still  more  fantastic  and  equally  untrue  are 
Heredotus's  statements  about  the  walls  of  Babylon,  which  were  supposed 
to  have  required  about  80,000,000  cubic  meters  of  material. 


HOW  WAR  IS  BEING  METAMORPHOSED      205 

of  the  Panama  Canal  every  year.  In  short,  even  in  the 
matter  of  vastness  war  has  no  remarkable  achievement  to  its 
credit. 

War  utilizes  all  technical  expedients,  but  did  not  create 
them.  Even  so  astonishing  a  construction  as  the  forty-two- 
ceutimeter  howitzer  is  not  really  in  any  sense  a  revolutionary 
invention,  but  at  best  an  enlargement  of  and  perhaps  also  an 
improvement  on  something  already  existing.  Even  the  old 
IMongol  chief  Batu  Khan  ^  knew  that  those  who  throw  stones 
had  best  throw  as  large  ones  as  possible;  and  he  is  said  to 
have  caused  the  fall  of  the  fortress  of  Kieff  -  in  an  amaz- 
ingly short  time  merely  because  of  the  enormous  size  of  the 
stones  from  his  stone-throwing  machines.  Yet  no  one  has 
ever  called  this  ancient  Mongol  prince  a  ''Goethe  of  action'' ;  ^ 
and  all  I  should  like  to  know  is  whether  the  newspaper  scribe 
who  once  ventured  to  insult  the  German  people  by  comparing 
one  of  Krupp's  officials  with  Goethe  can  now  even  remember 
the  former's  name. 

Can  even  asphyxiating  bombs  be  considered  an  invention? 
Why,  even  Hannibal  ordered  the  throwing  of  earthen  vessels 
tilled  with  poisonous  snakes,  and  later  on  beehives  were  fre- 
quently used  for  the  same  purpose.  Consequently,  it  is  no 
very  epoch-making  idea  to  replace  an  animal  poison  by  a 
chemical  one.  ^loreover,  here  again  the  Mongols  were  before 
us,  for  it  is  narrated  that  even  in  1241  they  caused  confusion 
in  the  ranks  of  the  Polish  and  German  armies  by  the  use  of 

i  Died  1256.     Grandson  of  Jenghiz  Khan. — Translator. 

2  Kieff  fell  in  12M). 

3  My  friend  Rosemeier  has  siuceeded  in  proving  by  very  painstaking 
investigations  that  the  Tatars  iMoiigols)  were  by  no  means  Ihc  nation 
of  barbarians  they  were  long  thought  to  be.  They  were  far  in  advance 
of  their  age,  and  five  hundred  years  ago  had  already  attained  a  degree 
of  military  eMiciency  which  the  European  nations  of  to-day  are  slowly 
struggling  to  attain.  In  this  respect  tliey  were  doubtless  even  in  ad- 
vance of  Prussia.  [Ur.  Nicolai's  friend,  I)r.  Hermann  KJisemeier,  who 
until  September,  1914,  was  political  editor  of  the  "Berliner  Morgenpost," 
was  forced,  because  of  his  democratic  views,  to  take  refuge  in  Switzer- 
land during  the  war. — Translator. 


206  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

asphyxiating  gases.  This  cannot  be  absolutely  vouched  for, 
but  there  is  nothing  incredible  in  it.  Even  supposing  it  were 
not  true,  however,  the  fact  of  the  idea  having  been  handed 
down  by  tradition  proves  it  to  have  existed  in  past  times; 
and  if  it  were  not  put  into  practice,  this  would  merely  indicate 
that  the  Mongols  shrank  from  doing  certain  things  from  which 
we  to-day  no  longer  shrink.  Let  us  hope,  therefore,  that  this 
particular  Mongol  story  is  true.^ 

And  what  else  is  there?  Airmen's  bombs,  petroleum 
squirts,  trenches,  felt-covered  helmets,  field  gray  or  khaki  uni- 
forms— these  are  the  other  most  remarkable  "inventions." 
The  fear  of  a  shortage  of  food  and  raw  materials  generally  has, 
it  is  true,  given  rise  to  all  manner  of  suggestions  in  Germany. 
Hans  Friedenthal  of  Berlin  recommended  making  flour  out  of 
straw,  and  Professor  Grabner  of  Dahlem  making  it  from  bul- 
rush heads.  Professor  Jacoby,  an  analytical  chemist,  of  Tii- 
bingen,  "discovered''  that  "reindeer  moss"  could  be  used  as  a 
substitute  for  starch;  Dr.  Kobert,  a  Rostock  professor,  urges 
having  bread  baked  out  of  blood,  adding  as  a  recommendation 
that  blood-cakes  taste  better  than  black  puddings,'^  but  without 
stating  how  black  puddings  do  taste.  Yet  another  suggestion, 
in  which  there  is  nothing  new,  is  that  sugar,  if  fermented, 
can  be  converted  into  albumen,  in  doing  which,  however,  a 
great  deal  of  nutriment  is  wasted.  All  which  has  hitherto 
proved  of  scarcely  any  practical  value.  ]\loreover,  the  sug- 
gestions quite  obviously  relate  to  comparatively  unimportant 
trifles. 

What  really  might  be  argued  with  some  reason  is  that  the  ex- 
traction of  ammonia  from  the  air  with  the  aid  of  electricity, 
a  process  long  known  to  science,  has  become  of  more  practical 
importance  owing  to  the  exhaustion  of  the  supplies  of  salt- 
peter, and  that  in  this  respect  our  industry  really  has  ad- 

1  "Tartarennachricht"  is  the  German  word,  which  means  a  blood- 
curdling story.  The  play  upon  words  is  impossible  to  give  back. — 
Translator. 

2  The  word  used  for  ''black  pudding"  is  " Bin t pudding." — Translator. 


HOW  WAR  IS  BEING  METAMORPHOSED      207 

vanced  during  the  war.  Similarly  the  substitute  for  man- 
ganese in  steel  production/  the  substitution  of  home-grown 
india-rubber  for  india-rubber  proper,  and  many  other  sub- 
stitutes all  betoken  progress.  But  here  again  it  must  be  left 
to  the  future  to  decide  whether  these  war  substitutes 
will  be  able  to  hold  their  own  in  the  open  competition 
of  peace.  In  any  case  they  are  only  a  very  indirect  result 
of  war,  and  their  true  cause,  like  that  of  all  inventions, 
was  economic  necessity. 

War,  in  short,  is  the  enemy  of  the  civilian  and  of  all  civilian 
labor. 

4. W  AK   AND   THE   SENSE   OF    SOLIDARITY 

§  71. — The  Decline  of  Comradeship 

Solidarity  and  soldiery  are  two  words  which  sound  much 
alike,  and  also  mean  much  the  same  thing.  Even  the  ancients 
held  that  fighting  brought  men  nearer  one  another,  which 
Diodorus  explains  thus,  "When  primitive  men  were  attacked 
by  animals,  they  used  to  lend  one  another  assistance,  as  ne- 
cessity taught  them  to  do.''  There  can  be  no  doubt  whatever 
that  old  Diodorus  was  right,  avian's  utter  defenselessness 
forced  him  to  help  his  fellow-man,  and  thus  stern  Nature 
forged  for  her  poorest  child  the  weapons  wherewith  that  child 
afterward  ruled  his  teacher. 

Modern  man  is  not  such  a  conscientious  thinker  as  Diodorus. 
He  does  not  believe  that  the  struggle  against  animals  and  the 
elements  gave  rise  to  the  oldest  form  of  association,  but  ac- 
tually presumes  to  talk  of  association  when  a  handful  of  hu- 
man beings  join  together  in  order  to  oppose  the  conception  of 
human  solidarity.  The  army,  which  is  there  to  give  prac- 
tical demonstration  of  man's  not  yet  having  reached  the  level 
of  considering  every  one  his  neighbor,  is  instanced  as  the 
best  and  most  striking  expression  of  good  fellowship. 

1  The  new  hard-tempered  kinds  of  steel  are  said  to  he  much  superior, 
making  it  possible  to  bore  big  guns  now  much  faster  tlian  foifmerly. 


208  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

The  things  of  this  world,  however,  are  such  a  topsy-turvy 
mixture,  that  even  here  there  lurks  a  grain  of  truth ;  and  al- 
though the  army  has  not  been  a  school  of  brotherly  love,  we 
can  still,  as  time  goes  on,  trace  the  growth  of  brotherly  love 
in  connection  with  and  about  it.  One  thing  is  certain:  not 
until  two  combatants'  friends  go  to  their  help  does  a  duel  be- 
come a  war  {duellum  become  helium)  ;  and  the  assembling  of 
an  army  proves  at  all  events  the  presence  of  social  impulses, 
and  is  assuredly  one  of  the  oldest  ways  consciously  adopted  by 
human  beings  of  acting  in  concert. 

That  others  come  to  the  assistance  of  a  single  combatant, 
moreover,  proves  that  they  consider  his  claims  justitiable,  and 
for  this  cause  war  is  on  a  higher  rung  of  the  social  ladder 
than  is  a  dispute  between  persons.  But  this  fundamental  idea 
of  obtaining  justice,  which  (juite  probably  led  to  the  forma- 
tion of  the  tirst  armies,  was  afterward  lost  sight  of.  Grad- 
ually a  separation  came  about  in  the  army,  and  the  old  duke, 
whom  the  peoples  once  chose  as  primus  inter  pares,  became  an 
officer  belonging  to  a  special  caste  apart  from  the  mass  of 
the  people :  and  as  in  the  army  this  severance  is  more  rigidly 
enforced  than  anywhere  else  in  the  social  scale,  and  splits  it 
up  into  two  entirely  distinct  parts,  it  may  now  be  described 
as  something  more  like  a  model  of  bad  fellowship. 

Frederick  William  I  knew  what  he  was  about  when  he  abol- 
ished the  principle  "that  to  obtain  a  commission  in  the  army 
all  that  is  necessary  is  considerable  skill  in  dealing  with  army 
mechanism,"^  thus  converting  the  officers  from  merely  a 
superior  class  of  soldiers  into  a  "class  apart,"  whose  mem- 
bers were  as  a  matter  of  course  not  common  soldiers  from  the 
ranks,  but  scions  of  the  nobility  (pages  or  squires). 

This  is  still  the  case  to-day,  and  the  system  is  more  or  less 
imitated  in  other  armies  also,  even  in  France,  where  every 
soldier  is  supposed  to  carry  a  ''baton  de  murechaV  in  his 
knapsack,  any  private  can,  at  all  events  in  theory,  still  attain 

1  "Gesc'hichte  des  preusischen  Landwehr"  ("History  of  the  Prussian 
Militia"),  by  R.  Brauer.     Mittler  &  Sohn:   Berlin.     P.  25. 


HOW  WAR  IS  BEING  METAMORPHOSED      209 

to  the  highest  dignities,  whereas  in  the  German  Army  this  is 
not  even  legally  possible.  That  the  nobility  were  originally 
specially  selected  to  become  oliieers  ought  not  to  surprise  us. 
Perhaps  there  was  nothing  else  to  be  done  because  the  com- 
paratively well-educated  middle-classes  would  then  have  flatly 
declined  to  degrade  themselves  by  becoming  drill  sergeants  of 
the  despised  soldiery. 

German  Liberals  are  fond  of  ventilating  the  question 
whether  the  nobility  is  favored  in  the  armj-,  and  whether  the 
prerogatives  of  nobility  are  or  are  not  identical  with  an  offi- 
cer's prerogatives;  but  this  is  of  comparatively  little  impor- 
tance. No  one  doubts  that  the  officers  as  a  body  are  absolutely 
exclusive.  True,  there  is  no  legal  basis  for  this  exclusiveness, 
nor  indeed  any  other  basis  beyond  the  fact  that  an  officer  has 
a  right  of  precedence  at  the  Prussian  court.  This  privilege, 
however,  trifling  as  it  may  seem,  has  sufficed  to  cement  court 
and  officers  together  for  all  eternity ;  and  as  the  higher  officers 
could  be  absolutely  depended  upon,  it  eventually  became  pos- 
sible to  utilize  the  whole  nation  for  manning  the  regiments 
without  the  latter  developing  into  a  people's  army.  The 
officers  as  a  whole  remained  the  cornerstone  of  reaction,  pre- 
venting the  "demoeratic  institution  of  a  nation  in  ac4ns" 
from  really  getting  into  the  people's  hands.  Hence  it  can 
now  truly  be  said  that  "the  world  is  not  so  flrmly  flxed  on 
Atlas's  shoulders  as  Prussia  on  the  shoulders  of  her  army." 

Whenever  there  was  any  real  work  to  be  done — in  war,  that 
is  to  say, — even  in  early  days  ordinary  citizens  appeared 
among  the  officers  as  if  by  magic,  and  in  1813  these  humbly 
born  officers  were  even  suffered  to  lay  down  their  lives  for  their 
country,  which  they  did  with  enthusiasm,  albeit  often  without 
due  recognition.  Shortly  after  the  regeneration  of  Prussia, 
for  instance,  we  find  the  more  recent  official  military  writers 
endeavoring  to  prove  that  in  1806  the  Prussian  nobility  was 
(qual  to  the  occasion,  and  that  in  1813  it  was  not  the  people 
who  saved  the  ruling  caste,  but,  on  the  contrary,  the  ruling 
I  ;iste  which  saved  the  people.     It  is  characteristic  that  an 


210  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

attemi)t  should  just  now  be  made  to  prove  that  a  citizen, 
Friccius,  Major  in  the  militia,  is  wholly  undeserving  of  the 
monument  erected  to  him  at  the  Grimma  Gate  in  Leipsic,  and 
that  it  is  Mirbach,  a  noble  and  an  officer  of  the  line,  to  whom  a 
monument  ought  to  have  been  erected.  It  must  not  be  for- 
gotten, however,  that  even  such  men  as  Treitsehke  blamed 
"the  anxiety  to  screen  the  Prussian  Guards,  who  as  long  ago 
as  1814  created  so  much  ill  feeling."^ 

This  recent  division  among  the  officers  themselves  grad- 
ually increased,  for  we  must  now  look  for  good-fellowship 
even  within  the  German  officers  corps.  Some  German  regi- 
ments are  composed  of  nobles  and  others  of  ordinary  citizens, 
some  of  guardsmen  and  linesmen,  and  others  of  members  of 
the  general  staff  and  troopers.  Then  there  are  the  grada- 
tions of  cavalry  and  artillery,  infantry  and  convoy-men ; 
officers  properly  so  called  and  ambulance  officers,  non-com- 
missioned officers  and  commissariat  officers,  subalterns  and 
military  officials;  and  each  one  of  these  classes  and  "class- 
lets''  is  a  world  in  itself,  anxiously  defending  its  preroga- 
tives. 

But  this  is  not  all.  In  the  incalculably  long  and  de- 
structive war  of  191Jr-1917  capable  men  are  needed,  not 
merely  ordinary  middle-class  citizens,  but  even  v^orking- 
class  men.  But  in  peace-time  what  on  earth  is  to  be  done  witli 
people  "who  themselves  admit  that  their  father  was  a  carpen- 
ter"? So,  as  the  favorite  deputy  officers  had  not  enough 
authority,  the  temporary  expedient  was  resorted  to  of  creating 
color-sergeant  lieutenants  for  show,  as  it  were.  That  is,  they 
were  officers  only  as  far  as  the  enemy  was  concerned. 

§  72. — Results  of  the  Separation  Between  Officers  and  Men 

Now,  the  overwhelming  majority  of  the  German  people  con- 
sider this  separation  between  officer  and  "ranker"  as  quite 
right  and  proper.     Therefore  this  state  of  things,  regrettable 

1  Heinrich  von  Treitschke's  speech  at  the  War  Memorial  Celebrations. 
July  19,  1895.     Hirzel:     Leipsic.     P.  9. 


HOW  WAR  IS  BEING  METAMORPHOSED      211 

as  it  may  be,  is  not  really  unjust,  though  it  does  prove  how 
little  the  army  has  done  to  promote  the  universal  equality  of 
man.  Indeed,  it  proves  how  it  has  actually  eradicated  every 
vestige  of  feeling  of  equality.  Moreover,  as  Germany  has  the 
best  army,  this  has  of  course  been  done  there  more  thoroughly 
than  elsewhere. 

Among  the  common  soldiers  equality  does  exist,  but  an 
equality  without  liberty,  the  equality  of  a  pack  of  slaves, 
all  of  them  tools  in  the  hands  of  their  superiors.  Such  equal- 
ity, of  course,  must  not  be  confounded  with  the  instinct  of 
human  solidarity  to  which  armies  owe  their  origin. 

Formerly,  when  tribes  were  too  distant  to  be  able  to  exert 
any  influence  on  one  another,  tribal  community  was  the  high- 
est form  of  association  that  man  was  able  clearly  to  imagine ; 
and  this  he  defended,  as  a  tribal  community,  as  a  nation,  or 
as  an  army.  Man  felt  that  there  must  be  some  such  asso- 
ciation, and  if  the  internal  conditions  of  the  d liferent  coun- 
tries had  only  continued  as  free  and  natural  as  when  army  and 
nation  were  one,  then  military  associations  would  quite  nat- 
urally have  become  enlarged  as  intercourse  with  other  human 
beings  began  to  produce  effect.  Meanwhile,  however,  the 
army,  which  was  originally  a  product  of  the  people,  had  be- 
come independent  of  its  creator  and  a  tool  in  the  hands  of 
the  ruling  class;  and  continued  so,  even  although  of  late  popu- 
lation has  constantly  increased,  and  likewise  the  army  was  con- 
stantly increasing.  The  people,  in  short,  no  longer  decide 
issues  but  are  themselves  decided  upon. 

Genuine  social  sentiments  can  never  exist  without  the  two- 
fold check  of  liberty  and  responsibility.  Soldiers  in  general, 
however,  are  not  free,  nor  are  they,  taken  as  a  body,  respon- 
sible. Hence  the  organization  uniting  them  can  not  be  called 
social.  However  much  comradeship  in  the  army  may  be 
talked  about,  it  can  be  only  a  matter  of  outward  form. 

Now,  it  may  be  argued  that  this  may  be  the  case  in  time  of 
peace,  but  that  in  time  of  war  a  new  kind  of  comradeship  is 
created  between  officers  and  men  owing  to  the  existence  of 


212  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

a  common  danger;  but  this  is  only  true  to  a  limited  extent. 
Of  course  both  officers  and  men  do  their  very  utmost  at  present 
to  rub  along  well  together  while  the  war.  lasts  and  each  de- 
pends on  the  other.  Often  enough  it  happens  in  "trench 
casinos"  that  men  give  so  much  rein  to  their  feelings  that  the 
distance  between  officer  and  private  is  undeniably  to  some 
extent  bridged  over.  But  this  is  all,  and  when  peace  does 
come  it  will  not  need  to  prove  that  in  reality  the  distance  be- 
tween man  and  man  is  just  as  great  as  ever.  On  the  con- 
trary, the  fear  of  spies  in  this  war  has  added  one  more  par- 
tition to  the  many  that  divide  up  modern  Germany,  and  one 
which  even  splits  up  the  army.  Every  one  believes  himself 
to  be  the  repository  of  specially  important  secrets. 

For  instance,  when  acting  as  army  doctor,  I  once  asked  a 
sailor  who  said  he  had  injured  his  heart  by  overstraining  it 
how  he  had  done  this.  He  stood  at  attention  and  said,  "Beg 
pardon,  a  sailor  must  n't  tell  secrets."  Unfortunately,  such 
answ^ers  are  very  characteristic  nowadays.  A  hundred  times 
have  I  read  in  an  officer's  eyes,  when  a  brother  officer  was 
asking  him  some  harmless  question,  the  anxious  query,  "Per- 
haps, after  all,  you  're  a  spy,  too?" 

Very  often  this  mystery-making  showed  itself  in  strange 
ways.  Thus  at  first  the  radio-telegraphists  in  a  certain  place 
did  a  little  innocent  bragging  about  the  important  telegrams 
they  received.  Afterward,  when  they  themselves  no  longer 
knew  the  contents  of  telegrams,  they  took  refuge  in  "pro- 
fessional secrecy."  Probably  there  have  been  many  such 
instances,  but  the  fact  that  there  is  nothing  behind  these 
uncommunicative  official  visages  does  not  make  matters  bet- 
ter. This  uncommunicativeness,  in  short,  is  a  characteristic 
of  mankind  to-daj'. 

Does  no  one  wonder  what  is  to  be  end  of  all  this?  The 
armj'-  is  on  the  high  road  to  convert  our  people  into  a  kind  of 
Jesuitical  order.  The  Jesuits  also  have  a  chief  college,  which 
every  one  of  them  blindly  obeys.  None  knows  why  he  does 
so:  he  simply  obeys.     Not  a  soul  speaks  of  what  he  is  doing: 


HOW  WAR  IS  BEING  METAMORPHOSED      213 

he  does  it;  every  one  keeps  a  relentless  watch  on  every  one 
else,  and  every  individual  impulse  is  stifled  for  the  good  of 
the  order  in  general.  Man  ceases  to  be  an  individual  person, 
and  becomes  a  mere  wheel  in  an  organization. 

The  Jesuits  also  talk  of  comradeship,  and  even  call  them- 
selves brothers,  and  this  Brotherhood  of  Jesus  has  achieved 
something  in  the  world,  in  fact,  a  great  deal.  Time  was  when 
we  did  not  envy  them  their  success,  and  if  we  used  to  say  we 
meant  to  be  a  nation  of  all  brothers,  we  did  not  mean  that 
we  wanted  to  be  Jesuits  or  to  belong  to  any  organization  con- 
sisting of  officers  and  common  soldiers.  We  meant  something 
which  might  perhaps  best  be  defined  as  the  opposite  of  both. 
We  meant  a  free  brotherliness,  in  which,  of  course,  there  would 
be  room  for  both  Jesuits  and  officers,  but  which  as  a  rule  was 
not  ruled  on  the  principles  of  either. 


CHAPTER  VI 
How  THE  Army  Has  Been  Transformed 

1. — NATIONAL   AND   PROFESSIONAL   ARMIES 

§  73. — The  Invincibility  of  a  National  Army 

The  wheel  of  time,  therefore,  has  come  full  circle,  and  the 
old  days  have  returned  in  which  every  man  must  be  armed. 
Once  again  the  world  bristles  with  arms;  once  again  every 
man  has  become  a  soldier,  and  this  condition  we  Germans 
proudly  call  that  of  a  nation  Ln  arms,  and  talk  about  our 
national  army. 

Now,  it  is  certainly  beyond  doubt  that  despite  all  their 
faults,  national  armies  have  given  a  better  account  of  them- 
selves on  the  whole  than  professional  armies.  Even  the 
Theban  militia  of  Epaminondas  were  superior  to  the  Spartans, 
a  special  caste  of  whom  had  been  trained  to  be  soldiers,  as 
witness  the  battle  of  Leuktra,  in  371  b.  c.  ;  and  in  275  b.  c.  the 
Roman  peasant  militia  conquered  both  the  Greek  mercenaries 
of  Pyrrhus,  King  of  Epirus  at  Beneventum  and  the  profes- 
sional armies  of  Carthage,  although  they  had  a  genius  such  as 
Hannibal  to  lead  them.  (At  Cannae,  characteristically 
enough,  comparatively  few  Punic  citizens  took  part  in  the 
fighting.)  Even  the  Sicilian  city  militia  had  already  beaten 
the  proud  Africans. 

The  vast  national  armies  of  the  Albigenses  and  Hussites 
were  for  long  invincible,  and  the  latter,  under  their  great  gen- 
eral Ziska,  had  no  difficulty  whatever  in  utterly  routing  the 
Emperor  Sigismund  and  his  experienced  knightly  armies,  as 
for  instance  at  Deutsch-Brod,  in  1422. 

Similarly  the  Swiss  peasants  at  Morgarten  conquered  the 

214 


HOAV  THE  ARMY  HAS  BEEN  TRANSFORMED      215 

knightly  hosts  of  Leopold  of  Austria,  the  people  of  Ditt- 
marscheii  '  conquered  the  flower  of  the  Danish  Imperial 
Army,  and  the  Steding  peasants  yielded  only  to  a  feudal  army 
enormously  superior  in  numbers.  Even  in  Germany  the  very 
ill-equipped  peasant  armies  could  not  be  conquered  until  the 
city  militia  joined  the  knightly  armies,  which  had  everywhere 
been  beaten. 

Under  the  popular  leadership  of  Jeanne  d'Arc  the  citizen 
defenders  of  Orleans  conquered  the  English  Army,  although 
the  latter  had  utterly  routed  the  French  knightly  armies  at 
Agincourt.  As  long  as  the  Swedish  Army  w^as  a  truly  na- 
tional people's  army,  it  was  invincible;  and  in  a  single  year, 
after  an  unparalleled  succession  of  victories,  it  even  reached 
the  Danube.  Not  till  afterward  did  the  Swedes  also  become 
professional  soldiers,'  and  then  there  was  an  end  to  their 
conspicuous  good  fortune. 

The  American  militia  under  Washington,  although  at  first 
heavily  defeated,  eventually  won  the  brilliant  victory  of  Sara- 
toga over  the  British  regulars.  Similarly  the  disorganized 
masses  of  soldiers  of  the  French  Revolution  very  soon  managed 
to  overthrow  the  experienced  armies  of  Austria  and  Prussia. 
On  the  other  hand,  in  1813  and  1815  Prussia's  insufficiently 
trained  masses  proved  superior  to  Napoleon's  Old  Guards. 

The  value  of  national  armies,  however,  has  been  tested  a 
hundred  times,  and  although  since  the  outbreak  of  war  Prus- 
sian military  experts  in  particular  have  succeeded  in  exalting 
the  achievements  of  "professional  soldiers"  as  compared  with 
those  of  civilian  soldiers,  it  is  only  in  the  pages  of  biassed 
historians  that  their  so-called  "successes"  need  be  sought. 
Apparently  it  is  not  really  so  very  difficult  to  master  the  busi- 
ness of  war.  The  last  linesman  who  had  never  served  in  the 
army  and  who  was  trained  in  from  four  to  six  weeks,  has  once 

1  Marshland  coast  region  of  Germany,  now  part  of  the  Prussian  prov- 
ince of  Schlesswig-Holstein. — Translator. 

-  Toward  tlu-  closf  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War  a  larpe  part  of  the  Swed- 
ish Army  and  almost  all  of  the  cavalry  consisted  of  Germans. 


216  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

more  learned  virtually  the  same  things  as  Used  to  take  twenty 
times  as  long  to  learn. ^ 

A  set  of  soldiers  with  experience  in  war,  on  the  other  hand, 
have  very  often  failed  to  give  a  good  account  of  themselves. 
The  German  journalist  Karl  Bleibtreu,  for  instance,  writes 
that  at  Gravelotte  and  Colomby  it  M^as  among  the  Old  Prus- 
sian troops  that  panic  broke  out.  It  was  they  who  took  to 
flight  and  who  shirked,  and  similarly  with  regard  to  the  Old 
Bavarian  troops  at  Loigny.  Even  Frossard  s  picked  French 
troops  conducted  themselves  badly  at  Eezonville  and  Grave- 
lotte, and  Canrobert's  did  likewise  on  the  terrace  of  St.  Privat 
and  at  Sedan.  By  this  it  is  not  intended  to  assert  that  troops 
differ  essentially  according  to  the  kind  of  training  they  have 
received.  Instances,  though  not  so  many,  could  be  alleged 
to  prove  the  contrary.'  But  it  undoubtedly  does  show  that 
an  army's  real  superiority  must  be  based  on  something  else 
than  technical  training. 

The  reason  why  it  is  so  difficult  to  perceive  wherein  lies  that 
principle  of  invincibility  which  manifests  itself  throughout 
all  the  hurlyburly  of  victory  and  defeat  is  that  hitherto  men 
have  been  firmly  convinced  of  the  necessity  of  deciding  all 

1  Nor  does  it  seem  so  very  difficult  to  "learn  to  be  a  general,"  as  was 
proved  by  the  Napoleonic  marshals  of  France.  Lannes  was  a  dyer,  and 
Murat,  a  waiter;  Key,  Bottcher,  and  Oudinot,  clerks;  Soult  a  copy- 
ing clerk:  and  Massena  a  vagabond.  And  they  all  understood  their  busi- 
ness: and  were  far  more  capable  than  Augeran,  who  had  served  as  a 
professional  soldier  in  the  Prussian  Army,  or  than  such  persons  as  the 
Marquis  de  Grouchy  and  Count  Lasalle,  who  had  served  in  a  like 
capacity  in  the  Bourbon  Army.  Even  von  der  Goltz,  in  passing  judg- 
ment from  the  point  of  view  of  a  German  military  man  on  Gambetta, 
the  lawyer,  savs  tliat  in  many  respects  it  would  liave  been  much  better 
for  France  had  she  listened  only  to  him.  It  goes  without  saying  that, 
since  old  DertHinger"s  time,  it  has  not  been  possible  to  cite  any  Ger- 
mans as  instances  of  this  superiority  of  non-professional  soldiers. 

2  Cf.  Adam  Smith's  "Inquiry  into  the  Nature  and  Causes  of  the 
Wealth  of  Nations,"  V,  I,  1  (1776).  Adam  Smith's  view  is  that  only 
a  very  small  percentage  of  soldiers  are  possible  and  necessary  in  a  civ- 
ilized community,  and  that  they  had  best  be  a  police  force,  paid  a  fi.xed 
salary.  In  proof  of  the  truth  of  his  contention  he  cites  instances  in 
which  well  organized  armies  have  beaten  badly  organized  ones. 


HOW  THE  ARMY  HAS  BEEN  TRANSFORMED  217 

their  great  struggles  by  fighting  like  animals.  Thus  they  have 
generally  fought  and  fought  until  at  length,  after  varying 
successes,  the  victor  on  the  battle-held  was  the  combatant  pre- 
destined to  victory  from  the  first — namely,  the  combatant  with 
the  stronger  vitality.  Hence  the  delusion  that  anything  can 
be  decided  by  a  battle  being  won.  In  reality,  however,  it  was 
the  national  army  which  won,  not  the  flower-decked  hosts 
which,  armed  to  the  teeth,  go  to  meet  death  on  the  battle-Held, 
but  that  national  army  of  workers  and  inventors,  artists  and 
scientists,  whose  vital  force  creates  new  life. 

That  fine  nations,  especially  in  former  times,  should  like- 
wise often  have  been  fine  soldiers  is  not  surprising,  but  has 
helped  to  obscure  the  truth,  since  it  thus  frequently  happened 
that  victory  on  the  battle-field  and  genuine  victory  coincided. 
For  this  very  reason  the  exceptions  are  all  the  more  instructive. 
Perhaps  the  most  striking  instances  of  nations  which  have 
obtained  a  foothold  without  having  ever  won  a  victory  are 
the  Chinese  and  the  Jews.  And  modern  Italy,  proof  of  whose 
efficient  labor  is  that  Italian  workmen  may  be  found  shoveling 
up  the  grour.d  all  round  the  globe,  has  she  not  won  something 
from  each  one  of  her  lost  wars?  And  have  not  Russia,  Ger- 
many, and  Austria,  the  three  empires  concerned,  all  promised 
the  Poles  autonomy?  Polish  workmen  are  to  be  found,  like 
Italian,  all  over  the  world;  yet  the  Polish  people  have  never 
waged  war  on  their  own  account ;  indeed  whenever  they  have 
attempted  to  bring  about  a  revolution  by  force  of  arms,  they 
have  failed  miserably.  And  is  not  Hungary  also  a  case  in 
point  ?  In  IS^y  she  was  cut  to  pieces,  and  to-day  she  has  the 
decisive  voice  in  the  Dual  ^lonarchy. 

Why  cite  all  these  examples,  however,  since  any  one  who 
keeps  his  eyes  open  will  find  in  the  history  of  nations  proofs 
and  to  spare  of  my  contentions?  Moreover,  no  one  will  be 
able  to  adduce  any  fact  to  disprove  them. 

It  is  national  superiority  which  decides  issues,  and  not 
military  success;  and  this  is  the  sense  in  which  the  nation 
decides,  or,  if  you  prefer,  a  national  army.     The  founders  of 


218  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

modern  armies  had  an  inkling  of  this  truth,  but,  spellbound 
by  tradition,  they  thought  they  must  equip  the  people  with 
rifles.  We  shall  never  attain  our  object  until  this  delusion 
has  vanished,  and  until  the  "fighting  army"  is  identical  with 
the  nation  at  work.  Then  will  we  try  to  help  our  people  by 
making  them  fitter  for  life  and  no  longer  fitter  for  bearing 
arms.  Then  will  the  true,  gemiine  struggle  begin,  one  which 
will  perhaps  be  far  more  terrible,  but  more  worth  fighting, 
because  it  will  mean  the  survival  of  the  fittest  and  not  of  those 
most  skilled  in  bearing  arms.  Thus  one  day  will  militarism 
be  overcome,  and  by  an  army  of  the  nation. 

§74. — A  Question  V^'ronghj  Worded 

In  order  that  this  may  one  day  come  to  pass,  however,  it 
was  perhaps  first  necessary  for  the  people  to  be  admitted  into 
the  professional  army.  It  is  regrettable,  but  may  have  been 
unavoidable,  that  the  number  of  soldiers  in  Europe  should 
have  increased  since  the  JMiddle  Ages  by  from  two  thousand 
to  four  thousand  per  cent. ;  for  whereas  in  the  IMiddle  Ages 
out  of  a  thousand  human  beings  not  more  than  four  to  eight 
were  soldiers,  at  present  from  120  to  150  are  so. 

Now,  this  increase,  which  is  absolutely  senseless  and  useless, 
since  all  countries  have  done  the  same  thing,  must  be  explained, 
if  it  cannot  be  justified.  It  is  the  one  solid  fact  from  which 
everything  else  has  resulted.  Hardly  any  one  refers  to  this 
main  fact,  however,  but  only  to  all  manner  of  absolutely  im- 
material side  issues.  For  instance,  we  argue  as  to  whether  the 
recruited  soldier  or  the  mercenary  is  the  better.  True,  the 
German  word  soldier  {Soldat)  is  derived  from  "Sold"  (pay)  ; 
but  in  general  it  is  imagined  that  the  soldier  to-day  fights 
voluntarily  for  his  country,  which  the  mercenary  (or  Soldner) 
does  not.  When  Frederick  the  Great  died,  in  1786,  this  dis- 
tinction may  have  existed ;  and  it  was  a  symptom  of  the  great 
changes  then  preparing  in  Europe  that  public  opinion  severely 
c'oiidemned  those  petty  German  princes  who,  in  return  for 
"subsidies,"  allowed  their  mercenaries  to  fight  for  England. 


HOW  THE  ARMY  HAS  BEEN  TRANSFORMED   219 

Only  twenty  years  earlier  public  opinion  saw  nothing  to  con- 
demn in  transactions  of  this  kind.  Even  in  1813  the  "new" 
Prussian  army  consisted,  at  all  events  a  small  part  thereof,  of 
enthusiastically  patriotic  volunteers,  whereas  the  "old"  army 
was  raked  together  by  craft  or  forced  from  all  parts  of  the 
world. 

But  now  it  is  the  English  who  are  dubbed  "hirelings," 
although,  at  any  rate  in  the  first  twenty  months  of  the  war, 
they  were  all  volunteers,  whereas  in  Germany  the  troops  are 
invariably  compulsorily  recruited.^  On  either  side  are  none 
but  German-born  or  British-born,  as  the  ease  may  be.  Both 
receive  pay  also,  and  that  the  German  is  paid  less  is  quite 
beside  the  point. 

From  the  purely  technical  point  of  view,  the  professional 
soldier  will,  of  course,  achieve  more,  but  this  scarcely  matters. 
The  one  really  important  point  is  the  "spirit  animating  the 
army.''  This,  in  an  army  based  on  universal  service,  may  be 
"bad,"  as  was  proved  in  the  case  of  the  Russians  during  the 
Japanese  War;  and  in  an  army  voluntarily  recruited  it  may 
be  "good,"  as  Americans  and  British  have  frequently  shown. 
The  contrary,  however,  may  be  the  case ;  and  although  volun- 
tary service  as  existing  in  England  until  recently  is  preferable 
for  other  reasons,  this  does  not  affect  the  quality  of  the  army. 

Even  the  question  whether  "standing  armies"  or  militia  are 
the  better  is  due  to  a  play  upon  words,  for  in  reality  in  every 
country  to-day  there  is  a  compromise  between  these  two  sys- 
tems. The  ancient  profession  of  a  mercenary  no  longer  exists 
except  for  officers,  beginning  with  generals,  who  still  some- 
times die  in  harness.  All  other  soldiers,  after  more  or  less 
training,  are  transferred  to  the  "reserve,"  which,  after  all, 
is  the  principle  of  the  militia.     Officers  serve  about  twenty 

1  The  only  persons  in  Germany  who  can  be  compared  with  England's 
volunteer  hirelings  would  be  the  comparatively  well  paid  officers,  who 
in  war-time  are  even  very  well  paid.  But  from  tlie  political  point  of 
view  this  is  very  much  mure  dangerous,  of  which  S])inoza  was  aware, 
when,  in  his  political  tractate,  cliai).  VI,  S  31,  lie  particularly  insisted 
that  soldiers  should  receive  pay,  but  officers  not.     Cl.  below. 


220  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

years,  subalterns  twelve,  the  Russians,  four,  German  and 
French  eavahy,  three,  and  German  infantry,  two  years. 
"What  may  be  called  upper  fifth-form  boys,  or  what  corresponds 
to  them  in  Germany,  serve  one  year ;  German  doctors  and  the 
Serbians,  six  months ;  the  Dutch,  three  months ;  and  the  Swiss, 
ten  weeks.  Here,  then,  we  have  all  grades.  How  greatly  the 
meaning  of  all  these  military  titles  varies,  moreover,  even 
among  experts,  is  proved  by  the  fact  that  in  the  "1824  MWi- 
tary  Hand-book"  ^  the  Prussian  Army  of  Jena  is  described  as 
an  "organized  militia." 

All  these  alleged  contradictions  in  terms,  such  as  soldiers 
under  obligation  to  serve  in  the  army  or  hirelings,  professional 
or  national  army,  standing  army  or  militia,  matter  nothing 
to-day.  Every  nation  tries  to  squeeze  as  much  as  possible  out 
of  the  material  at  its  disposal,  and  for  this  purpose  universal 
service  is  of  course  the  best.  No  reasonable  person  can  be  in 
any  doubt  about  this. 

The  only  possible  question,  therefore,  is  whether  it  is  worth  a 
nation's  while  to  sacrifice  its  best  sons  for  a  purpose  attainable 
by  means  of  an  army.  For  this  is  what  it  all  amounts  to,  and 
this  must  determine  the  purpose  for  which  an  army  is  used. 
Originally,  it  is  true,  an  army  really  was  meant  for  war,  and 
existed  only  in  war,  which  simple  folk  probably  took  -to  be  a 
matter  of  course.  Indeed,  when  the  business  of  war  was  not, 
as  it  is  now,  something  wholly  apart  from  man's  ordinary 
habits  of  life,  it  would  naturally  have  been  absurd  to  have 
kept  an  army  together  even  in  peace-time.  Every  one  used 
to  go  about  his  business,  and  if  war  came,  then  every  one  used 
to  take  up  arms. 

§  Tf). — The  Three  Reasons  for  the  Introduction  of  Profes- 
sional Armies 

This  gradually  changed.  First  of  all  a  change,  often 
wrongly  called  degeneration,  came  about  in  man.  Peaceful 
citizens,  whose  daj's  were  tilled  up  with  work,  forgot  how  to 

1  'Militarisches  Taschenbuch  1842." 


HOW  THE  ARMY  HAS  BEEN  TRANSFORMED  221 

ride  and  fight,  and  conseijiiently  were  obliged,  even  in  peace- 
time, to  practice  the  increasingly  difficult  art  of  war,  for  which 
they  had  no  time.  Thus  professional  soldiers  came  into 
existence,  most  of  them  ' '  international  artisans, ' '  who  traveled 
from  place  to  place,  carrying  on  their  occupation  at  the  same 
time.  Such  familiar  names  as  Xenophon,  Pyrrhus,  G.  von 
Frundsberg^  and  Gattamellata  prove  that  this  arrangement 
was  not  peculiar  to  any  nation  or  to  any  period. 

Secondly,  as  time  went  on,  the  community  was  constantly 
requiring  a  larger  and  larger  police  force,  as  the  number  of 
prohibitions  was  continually  increasing,  and  the  minority  en- 
gaged in  perpetually  exploiting  the  masses  more  and  more  were 
forced  to  maintain  troops  for  their  individual  protection. 
That  this  and  not  by  any  means  fondness  for  waging  war  was 
the  main  reason  for  the  introduction  of  standing  armies  is 
plain  from  the  fact  that  almost  without  exception  these  can 
be  proved  to  have  originated  in  a  mere  princely  bodyguard, 
of  which  we  have  a  reminder  of  this  in  the  names  of  the  oldest 
divisions  of  the  standing  armies — Pretorians,  Guards,  body- 
guard, "IMaison  du  Roi,"  myrmidons,  gentlemen-at-arms,  and 
others. 

For  this  very  reason  standing  armies  were  virtually  never 
recruited  from  the  country's  own  sons,  since  it  was  against 
the  latter  that  they  were  to  be  used.  The  Roman  Pretorians 
were  Germans  or  Parthians;  the  French  Guards  were  Swiss; 
the  first  army  of  the  Hohenzollerns  consisted  of  South  Ger- 
mans; and  up  till  the  Prussian  Wars  of  Liberation  recruiting 
abroad -was  preferred.  Indeed  Frederick  William  I,  the  real 
founder  of  the  Prussian  Army,  expressly  forbade  any  attempt 
to  induce  the  country's  sons  to  take  their  places  beside  "com- 
mon fellows."  Accordingly,  no  one  thought  it  strange  that 
scions  of  the  same  fatherland  should  fight  against  one  another. 
Thus  at  ^lalplaquet,  Swiss  were  pitted  against  Swiss,  and  at 
Pavia,  in  1525,  German  mercenaries  under  Frundsberg  fought 

1  (leorg  von  Frundsberg,  1473-1528,  leader  of  the  German  free  landa 
under  Maximilian  and  Charles  V^. 


222  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

against  the  French  "Black  Band,"  which,  for  that  matter, 
likewise  consisted  of  Germans  under  the  leadership  of  a  Lower 
Saxon  junker. 

Thirdly,  there  was  yet  another  cause  for  the  establishment 
of  standing  armies,  and  this,  strange  as  it  may  sound,  was 
men's  longing  for  peace.  At  a  time  when  there  were  as  yet 
no  standing  armies,  old  Cicero^  innocently  wrote:  *'we  must 
wage  war  one  day  in  order  afterward  to  be  able  to  enjoy 
peace,"  thereby  correctly  describing  what  is  at  present  actu- 
ally a  fact.  In  the  Rome  of  Cicero's  days  there  were  still  so 
many  savage  elements,  that  he  w^as  obliged,  in  making  such  an 
observation,  to  hold  forth  some  attractive  subsidiary  prospect. 
But  when  Rome  became  more  highly  civilized,  and  conse- 
quently, perhaps  partly  under  the  influence  of  the  Christian 
conceptions  of  fraternity  then  spreading  over  the  world,  not 
enough  men  were  anxious  to  become  soldiers,  Vegetius,-  a 
Christian,  wrote  that  whoever  desired  peace  ought  to  pre- 
pare for  war,  connecting  this  statement  with  Cicero's  words, 
but  absolutely  reversing  their  meaning. 

Thus  we  ought  to  prepare  for  war  in  order  to  avoid  it, 
whereas  otherwise  no  one  prepares  for  anything  unless  he 
wants  to  bring  it  about.  An  analogy  to  this  can  be  found  only 
in  the  confused  reasoning  of  scholastic  theologians.  Here 
also  we  find  the  assertion  that  as  no  one  can  positively  know 
that  it  is  not,  after  all,  dangerous  to  deny  God,  therefore  it  is 
safer,  especially  for  His  enemies,  to  believe  in  Him,  "since 
then  He  cannot  be  angry  with  them." 

Lessing  has  already  admirably  exposed  this  "safety"  kind 
of  argument.  He  describes  a  Jew,  who,  being  asked  whether 
he  would  prefer  to  believe  in  a  living  or  a  dead  Christ,  re- 
plies: "Rather  in  a  living  Christ,  for  he  could  always  be 
killed  afterward;  but  it  is  difficult  to  make  the  dead  live 

1  Cicero:  "Quare,  si  pace  frui  volumus,  helium  gerendum  est."  Phil. 
VII.     6,  19f. 

-  Vegetius:  "Qui  desiderat  pacem,  praeparet  helium."  Epitome  just, 
rei  milit.     3  p.  vol. 


HOW  THE  ARMY  HAS  BEEN  TRANSFORMED  223 

again."  It  has  been  just  the  same  with  war.  Timorous  per- 
sons think  it  dangerous  to  believe  even  in  the  possibility  of 
peace,  for  then  war  might  come  like  a  thief  in  the  night  and 
devour  them;  and  therefore,  for  safety's  sake,  an  ever-living — 
that  is,  a  standing — army  must  be  kept.  Else  the  other  armies 
would  kill  it. 

These  standing  armies  for  peace,  therefore,  a  condition 
which  even  Logau  ^  stigmatized  as  an  "armor-clad  peace," 
arose  for  the  following  reasons: 

1. — As  a  result  of  war  having  become  unnatural  and  nations 
being  engaged  in  peaceful  occupations, 

2. — As  a  sign  of  princes'  dread  lest  the  disinherited  should 
take  vengeance  upon  them. 

3. — As  a  sign  of  the  people's  dread  of  the  horrors  of  war. 

Armies,  therefore,  were  not  at  all  created  for  war,  but  for 
peace ;  and  they  are  not  a  warlike,  but  a  peaceful,  symptom. 
But  since,  perhaps,  nothing  could  be  less  adapted  to  the 
awakening  desire  for  peace,  all  they  have  succeeded  in  doing  is 
to  make  wars  ever  greater  and  more  horrible.  This  is  always 
so  when  we  try  to  cast  out  the  devil  by  Beelzebub,  which,  for 
that  matter,  is  not  generally  a  sign  of  particularly  great 
wickedness,  but  always  one  of  particularly  great  stupidity. 
Thus  modern  armies  in  themselves  are  not  wicked,  but  they  are 
the  ve  plus  ultra  of  human  folly. 

'2. — DEi^ENSIVE   MILITIA   OR   AGGRESSIVE   ARMY  ^ 

.6. — The  Origin  and  Meaning  of  Militia 

I  hardly  know  a  single  book  on  militia  which  does  not  begin 
by  asserting  that  originally  the  principle  of  universal  service 

1  Logau'3  "Sinnepedichte,"  No.   1802,  1G54. 
"Krieg  hat  den  Harnisch  weggelegt,  der  Friede  zeuclit  ilina  an. 

Wir  wissen,  was  der  Krieg  verlibt,  wer  weiss,  was  Friedi'  kannV" 

(War  lias  put  off  its  armor,  and  peace  puts  it  on.  We  know  what 
mischief  war  can  do;  who  knows  what  peace  can  do?) 

-  Wliere  not  otiierwise  stated,  I  liave  relied  for  my  facts  mainly  upon 
"Die  Geschichte  der  preussisciien  Landwehr"   ("History  of  the  Prussian 


224  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

prevailed  in  Germany,  in  accordance  with  the  old  feudal  sys- 
tem. In  one  sense  this  is  true,  though  it  is  both  saying  too 
much  and  too  little.  It  says  too  little  because  universal  service 
existed  not  in  Germany  alone,  but  throughout  Europe  and  even 
throughout  the  world.  After  all,  it  is  quite  natural  that  the 
inhabitants  of  a  country  should  have  defended  themselves 
against  eneraj'  invasion,  as  they  would  generally  have  done  ab- 
solutely of  their  own  accord  in  order  to  avoid  being  killed,  and 
which  they  were  everywhere  bound  to  do.  Almost  all  primi- 
tive states  have  been  founded  on  some  such  necessity  for  de- 
fense and  oti'ense. 

But  it  also  says  too  much.  Whoever  goes  to  the  roots  of 
that  patriotic  feeling  from  which  ancient  Germany  sprang 
ought  never  to  forget  how  marvelous  rich  and  expressive  is 
our  mother  tongue.  In  Germany  there  is  no  "conscription 
generale,"  which  might  mean  anything,  but  only  the  quite 
clearly  defined  "universal  military  service."  This  does  not 
mean  that  it  is  every  one's  duty  to  attack  or  inflict  chastise- 
ment on  others,  but  simply  and  solelj^  that  it  is  every  man's 
duty  to  bear  arms.     More  clearly  it  cannot  be  expressed. 

The  Ottoman  is  commanded  by  his  religion  to  attack,  but  the 
German's  duty  was  only  to  protect  hearth  and  home,  and  it 
was  left  to  his  ow^n  free  choice  whether  he  would  take,  part  in 
military  excursions  into  other  countries.  No  one  was  com- 
pelled to  take  part  in  the  '''Ver  sacrum,"  and  this  ancient 
Teutonic  custom  survived  longest  in  free  England,  where 
until  quite  recently  every  one  was  liable  for  home  defense  only, 
while  the  yeomen  voluntarily  obeyed  the  king's  call  to  attack, 
partly  because  they  hoped  for  plunder  (though  now  they  can 
hope  only  for  pay),  and  partly  from  patriotism. 

Originally  this  system  prevailed  in  Germany,  as  everywhere 
else;  and  in  Prussia,  which  is  somewhat  off  the  beaten  track, 
it  survived  a  particularly  long  while.  When  the  word  militia 
(Landwehr)  first  occurs  in  Prussian  documents,  it  is  used  to 

Militia"),  by  the  Prussian  Minister  Briiuer.     Mittler  &  Sohn:     Berlin, 
1863. 


HOW  THE  ARMY  HAS  BEEN  TRANSFORMED   225 

mean  a  model  peaceful  institution,  which,  it  is  true,  the  Hohen- 
zollerns  were  not  long  in  abolishing. 

In  the  old  monastic  country  of  Prussia,  after  its  seculariza- 
tion, the  militia  formed  an  integral  part  of  the  so-called  "de- 
fense works."  As  Polish  was  at  first  spoken  there,  they  were 
called  '*Wybranick,''  '^  and  there  is  no  official  mention  of 
militia  until  1613.  Ten  years  later  the  Elector  George  "Wil- 
liam and  the  Prussian  Estates  of  the  Realm  came  to  an  agree- 
ment concerning  this  militia,  "whereby  every  tenth  man  was 
destined  to  go  to  the  frontier,  while  the  rest  were  to  remain 
in  the  interior  of  the  country  to  defend  it." 

Had  this  idea  of  utilizing  the  inexhaustible  reserves  of  uni- 
versal service  only  for  home  defense  been  further  developed, 
wars  would  have  become  impossible.  For  instance,  if  to-day 
only  one  soldier  in  ten  were  allowed  to  cross  the  frontier  and 
the  recruiting  systems  were  all  alike,  then  even  if  all  Europe 
united  in  an  attack  on  the  Central  empires,  there  w'ould  be 
only  one  man  available  for  attack  as  against  more  than  four 
for  defense  at  the  disposal  of  the  Central  empires.  Contrari- 
wise, every  soldier  of  the  Central  empires  would  encounter 
about  thirty  enemies  on  the  defensive.  Indeed,  even  Germanj^ 
alone,  defending  herself  against  all  Europe,  would  have  more 
than  twice  as  many  troops  as  her  aggressors  could  put  in  the 
field. 

This  "sacred  duty  of  bearing  arms,"  which  would  almost 
automatically  have  prevented  any  attack,  became  so  completely 
metamorphosed  in  the  course  of  ages  that  now  nothing  but 
the  name  is  a  faint  reminder,  and  this  only  for  the  learned, 
that  the  civilization  of  the  German  nation  was  once  peaceful 
in  character. 

It  was  Charlemagne  who  first  attempted  to  force  the  German 
people  into  aggressive  warfare ;  and  we  ought  to  reflect,  espe- 

1  Wyhraniek  means  selected.  Here  again,  therefore,  the  fine  title  and 
meaning  of  the  militia  is  not  traceable,  though  it  is  characteristic  that 
those  wlio  translated  the  word  did  not  do  so  literally,  but  freelj'  adapted 
it,  being  mindful  of  the  trend  of  ancient  German  civilization. 


226  THE  BIOLOGY  OP  WAR 

cially  just  now,  that  even  he  did  not  succeed  in  calling  out  the 
whole  nation  for  more  than  a  few  decades,  and  then  only  by 
dint  of  great  difficulty.  Charlemagne  wanted  to  uplift  and 
protect  the  peasant  class.  Hence  he  gave  his  people  whatever 
land  he  conquered,  hoping  thereby  to  induce  them  to  defend 
it  of  their  own  accord.  If  he  freed  the  peasant  class,  he  hoped 
to  have  a  nation  capable  of  bearing  arms;  but  he  very  soon 
perceived  that  this  was  like  arguing  in  a  circle,  for  the  per- 
petual wars  ruined  the  very  class  of  peasants  they  had  orig- 
inally created.^ 

Thus  this  agrarian  reform  of  Charlemagne,  which  aimed  at 
establishing  a  class  of  peasant  soldiers,  failed  because  it  was 
essentially  inconsistent.  Similarly  all  agrarian  reforms  had 
failed,  in  ancient  Greece  (the  Spartan  reforms  of  Agis  and 
Cleomenes,  for  instance),  and  likewise  in  Italy,  from  those  of 
Servius  Tullius  up  to  and  including  those  of  the  Gracchi ;  and 
similarly  all  such  reforms  were  destined  to  fail  in  the  future, 
even  those  of  Frederick  William  III  of  Prussia  until  1813. 

§  77. — The  Rise  of  a  Hireling  Army  in  Germany 

Even  under  the  Carolingians  men  raised  by  general  levy 
proved  unsuited  for  fighting  abroad ;  but  in  the  long  run  the 
vassal  army  likewise  failed.  In  this  army  the  vassal  was  not  a 
proper  professional  soldier,  but  pursued  his  soldier  "s  calling 
as  a  permanent  secondary  occupation. 

Attempts  to  conquer  foreign  countries  with  vassal  armies 
failed  utterly,  for  the  German  people  could  not  be  induced 
to  dream  dreams  of  conquering  Italy,  as  did  its  emperors. 
Henry  the  Lion,^  for  instance,  flatly  declined  to  fight  Barbaros- 

1  When  the  wars  ceased,  indeed,  when  one  nation  was  at  length  vic- 
torious, then  perhaps  it  might  have  been  possible  to  discuss  whether  it 
was  all  worth  while;  but  even  in  those  days  the  conquered  were  wont 
to  revenge  themselves. 

2  Henry  the  Lion  (1129-1195),  Duke  of  Saxony  and  Bavaria,  cousin 
of  Barbarossa.  Married  Matilda,  daughter  of  Henry  II  of  England, 
and  spent  three  years  in  England.  He  founded  Munich,  and  did  much 
to  promote  the  development  of  Hamburg,  Liibeck,  and  other  towns. 
Owing  to  his  having  acted  disloyally  to  Barbarossa  in  1175,  the  latter 


HOW  THE  ARMY  HAS  BEEN  TRANSFORMED   227 

sa's  battles,  and  even  the  second  Frederick  von  Hohenstaufen 
was  obliged  to  employ  foreigners,  mostly  Saracens,  Subse- 
quently the  question  whether  the  "obligation  to  serve"  might 
be  enforced  for  some  object  outside  the  empire,  and,  if  so,  to 
what  extent,  gave  rise  to  endless  dissensions.  Indeed,  to 
describe  these  would  mean  writing  a  large  portion  of  medieval 
constitutional  history.  At  all  events,  the  rulers  did  not  as  yet 
have  their  own  way,  and  as  they  cared  little  about  a  "uni- 
versal obligation  to  serve  in  peace,"  they  allowed  universal 
service  in  general  gradually  to  fall  into  disuse. 

A  middle  course  w-as  then  agreed  upon,  which  suited  both 
parties  concerned.  The  citizen  bought  himself  free  for  good 
and  for  all  from  the  obligation  to  serve;  and  with  the  pro- 
ceeds of  this  tax  the  lord  of  the  soil  bought  himself  a  smaller, 
more  convenient  army,  one  which  was  not  always  w^auting 
to  go  home,  but,  ready  either  for  peace  or  war,  could  be  used 
for  making  wars  on  foreign  countries  as  well  as  on  the  rights 
of  the  lord  of  the  soil's  fellow-citizens,  irrespective  of  all 
ordinances  concerning  the  duty  of  military  service.  Thus  it 
was  that  in  England  and  Denmark  German  mercenaries  were 
used  to  quell  the  risings  of  the  harassed  peasantry,  while  the 
Ilapsburgs  in  the  Anti-Reformation  movement  used  Italian 
and  Walloon  troops  against  their  Protestant  knights,  cities, 
and  peasants.  General  levies  of  the  people  lingered  on  only 
in  a  few  democracies,  such  as  Switzerland;  and  except  in 
Poland,  even  the  nobility  were  not  always  called  upon  to 
serve.  Thus  national  armies  were  abolished  by  the  ruling 
caste,  because  it  was  still  impossible  to  exploit  the  nation's 
strength  in  the  interests  of  any  djmasties.  What  softened 
tills  blow  for  the  rulers  was  that  early  in  the  Middle  Ages 
tirearms  began  to  be  used  now,  and  not  every  one  was  skilled  in 
the  use  of  these;  hence  the  necessity  for  "trained  soldiers" 
again  arose.     At  all  events,  just  at  this  time  princely  guards, 

put  him  to  the  han  of  the  empire  and  forfeited  his  lands.  As  he  suh- 
mittcd  in  llSl,  however,  he  was  suffered  to  keep  Liineburg  and  Bruns- 
wick —Translator. 


228  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

gentlemen-at-arms,  bodyguards,  or  whatever  their  names  may 
have  been,  began  almost  everywhere  being  converted  into  gen- 
uine armies  of  mercenaries,  for  the  most  part  a  scourge 
rather  than  a  protection  to  the  countrj^  in  whose  pay  they 
were. 

Once  the  princes  found  they  could  depend  upon  their  hire- 
lings to  support  them  steadfastly  and  independently  of  the 
people,  they  hardly  ever  kept  to  their  agreement  with  the 
latter,  but  repeatedly  demanded  not  merely  their  money,  but 
their  blood  also.  Wars  were  very  frequent,  but  those  who 
delighted  in  war  comparatively  few.  Thus  demand  exceeded 
supply,  and  an  army  of  foreign  mercenaries  cost  a  pretty 
penny.  Hence  the  thoughts  of  any  prince  anxious  to  man- 
age *' economically"  could  not  but  be  perpetually  reverting 
to  universal  liability  to  military  service,  which,  after  all, 
was  a  way  of  getting  soldiers  comparatively  cheap.  But 
sometimes  he  realized  that,  at  any  rate  in  those  days,  there 
was  danger  in  making  his  fellow-subjects  fire  on  their  own 
fathers  and  brothers;  and  sometimes  he  perceived  that,  after 
all,  these  fellow-citizens  of  his  could  be  better  employed  for 
other  purposes.  Then  he  sorrowfully  reverted  to  the  plan  of 
recruiting  his  soldiers  abroad.  So  matters  went  on,  never 
for  long  the  same. 

§  78. — The  Bise  of  an  Army  of  Mercenaries  in  Prussia 

Conditions  did  not  become  more  stable  until  Frederick  Wil- 
liam I's  time.  This  "soldier-king,"  who  loved  parading 
about  with  his  "set  of  longlegs,"  first  disbanded  the  militia 
established  by  his  predecessor  for  home  defense,  alleging  that 
it  was  "insuiificiently  trained."  To  this  militia  it  was  "ex- 
pressly promised  that  it  should  never  be  taken  out  of  the 
country."  Under  penalty  of  a  hundred  ducats'  fine,  he  even 
forbade  the  word  militia  to  be  used,  and  he  also  forbade  any 
homeland  recruiting,  which,  however,  he  afterward  allowed 
from  pecuniary  considerations.  But  an  edict  of  1721  re- 
stricted it  to  "such  subjects  as  may  come  forward  of  their 


HOW  THE  ARMY  HAS  BEEN  TRANSFORMED  229 

own  free  will,  and  are  not  already  engaged  in  the  cultivation 
of  the  soil,  in  the  promotion  of  commerce,"  and  in  certain 
other  occupations. 

The  twenty-seven  years  of  Frederick  William  I's  reign 
were,  by  the  way,  among  the  most  peaceful  which  Prussia  has 
seen.  With  a  small  "show  guard''  of  soldiers  it  was  impos- 
sible to  make  war,  for,  as  the  impartial  historian  cannot  fail 
to  notice,  that  to  whomsoever  Ood  gives  an  army,  He  sooner 
or  later  gives  the  war  belonging  thereto. 

Frederick  William  I's  army  was  small  and  consisted  solely 
of  "mercenaries,"  being  thus  as  unlike  our  present  monstrous 
national  armies  as  possible.  Yet  he  is  universally,  and  rightly, 
regarded  as  the  founder  of  the  Prussian  military  system. 
To  him  is  traceable  the  root  principle  of  the  Prussian  Army,  a 
principle  which  all  modern  prating  about  national  or  hireling 
armies,  one  year's  or  three  years'  service,  etc.,  merely  ob- 
scures. He  it  was  who  caused  the  Prussian  Army  to  be  clas- 
sified into  "common  soldiers"^  and  officers,  and  since  his 
time  it  has  been  impossible  for  any  soldier  to  become  an 
officer. 

All  who  speak  of  this  monarch  as  the  founder  of  the  Prus- 
sian Army  testify,  perhaps  unwittingly,  to  the  fact  that  this 
contempt  for  the  "common  soldier,"  which  in  no  other  army 
is  so  marked,  is  really  characteristic ;  for  this  sharp  delimi- 
tation is  all  that  is  now  left  of  his  system,  and  to-day  it  is 
sharper  than  ever;  and  this  monarch's  contempt  for  "common 
fellows"  (that  is,  foreigners  or,  later  on,  the  good-for-nothing 
dregs  of  his  own  people),  has  in  course  of  time  become  trans- 
ferred to  the  mass  of  the  German  people.  They  are  still  good 
enough  to  be  "common  soldiers,"  while  promotion  to  be  an 
officer  is  reserved  for  the  rich  or  noble. 

This  standing  army  proper  remained  much  the  same  until 
the  battles  of  Jena  and  Auerstiidt,  but  in  times  of  real  na- 
tional danger,  the  people  also  alwaj^s  used  to  fight  for  their 
country.     Thus,  after  the  dangerous  concentric  attack  of  the 

1  "Gmeine" — common  soldiers,  commoners. — Translator. 


230  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

Allies  on  Prussia  began,  the  Pomeranian  Estates  equipped  five 
thousand  yeomanry  and  offered  them  to  the  king,  and  the 
provincial  cities  of  the  Marches  and  of  the  domains  of  Madge- 
burg  and  Halberstadt  did  likewise,  adding,  it  is  true,  the  stipu- 
lation that  these  troops  should  be  maintained  only  for  the  du- 
ration of  the  war  and  used  only  for  the  defense  of  the  country. 
But  what  a  king  has,  he  has,  and  in  the  last  years  of  the  war 
these  troops  were  unlawfully  employed  as  reserves.  The  great 
king,  however,  unlike  his  successors,  did  disband  these  bat- 
talions on  the  conclusion  of  the  war,  although  his  empty  treas- 
ury' may  certainly  have  had  something  to  do  with  this. 

§  79. — Attempts  at  Organization  Before  the  Battle  of  Jena 

After  the  death  of  Frederick  II  no  change  took  place 
until  the  cannonading  of  Yalmy,  the  victory  of  the  French 
at  Jemappes  in  1792,  and  the  conquest  of  Toulon  made  the 
Allies  realize  that  with  the  French  Revolution  new  forces  had 
gained  the  upper  hand.  "When  we  are  in  a  tight  place,  we 
always  think  of  the  people.  Consequently  in  1794  an  edict  of 
the  Prussian  Military  Department  ^  approved  the  offer  of 
the  president  of  the  chamber,  Stein,  to  collect  a  militia.  The 
following  year,  indeed,  even  the  imperial  court  at  Vienna  be- 
gan to  discuss  the  question  of  a  "universal  arming  of  the 
people."  But  the  Prussian  Government,  which  in  1795  still 
believed  in  Frederick  the  Great's  army,  opined  that  such  a 
general  levy  of  the  people  would  not  suffice  to  get  the  better 
of  the  enemy  and,  moreover,  was  dangerous.  Once  more  did 
the  Prussian  bureaucrats  prove  that  they  knew  better  how 
to  attain  their  end  than  did  the  Viennese;  for,  after  all,  the 
whole  century  of  German  reaction  is  contained  in  these  few 
words  of  August  25,  1795,  *'a  people  in  arms  is  a  danger  in 
itself." 

Yet  the  time  came  when  even  Prussian  bureaucrats  were 
forced  to  appeal  to  the  people  in  arms,  which,  for  the  time 
being,  did  not  get  beyond  the  stage  of  plans.     For  eight  long 

1  Oher-Kriegs-Eollegium. — Translator. 


now  THE  ARMY  HAS  BEEN  TRANSFORJEED      231 

years,  moreover,  nothing  was  said  about  it,  and  meanwhile 
Napoleon's  new  armies  were  turning  the  world  upside  down. 
Then,  in  1803,  we  suddenly  hear  of  General  von  Riiehel's 
scheme  for  raising  fully  fifty  thousand  yeomanry,  who,  sig- 
nitieantly  enough,  were  to  be  under  the  command  of  "semi- 
invalids."  General  von  Courbiere  had  also  a  plan,  which, 
however,  left  the  militia  wholly  out  of  account,  and  merely 
proposed  to  call  up  more  recruits,  and  dismiss  on  leave  an 
equal  number  of  experienced  soldiers,  thus  creating  a  supply 
of  "thoroughly  trained"  men  to  increase  the  standing  array 
for  war  purposes. 

A  high  and  mighty  military  organization  committee,  which 
had  been  sitting  since  1795,  was  particularly  incensed  over 
^Fajor  von  Knesebeck's  plan  for  the  introduction  of  a  genuine 
militia,  to  be  called  the  "Patriotic  Legions."  Degrading  pun- 
ishments, moreover,  were  to  be  abolished.  The  committee 
angrily  pointed  out  that  the  Prussian  military  constitution 
was  a  "venerable  original  document  and  of  matchless  perfec- 
tion," something  which  could  not  be  meddled  with  without 
everything  collapsing.  When  such  principles  prevailed,  the 
wonder  is  not  that  the  organization  committee  should  have 
kept  silence  so  long,  but  why  it  should  ever  have  existed  at 
all. 

General  von  Riiehel's  scheme  was  supposed  to  be  accepted, 
but  in  reality  nothing  whatever  was  done;  and  when  war 
broke  out,  only  a  few  Polish  battalions  could  be  scraped  to- 
gether, and  then  in  Silesia.  Fruitless  as  the  labors  of  the  mil- 
itary organization  committee  were,  however,  they  cannot  be 
ignored  when  the  value  of  soldiers  is  being  inquired  into. 
There  is  again  an  inclination  to  consider  that  at  Jena  the 
officers  did  not  fail  so  very  badly,  "for,  after  all,  such  a  lot 
of  them  did  stick  to  their  guns,"  as  if  the  value  of  a  human 
being  depended  on  some  one  else  shooting  him  dead.  If  this 
were  the  case,  then  hares  would  make  the  best  officers.  The 
really  important  fact  is  that  until  the  Peace  of  Tilsit  tlie  army 
was  entirely  in  the  hands  of  high-born  military  men,  who, 


232  THE  BIOLOGY  OP  WAR 

as  their  organizatiou  committee  proved,  were  dbsoluidi,    ."  ;- 
capable. 

§  SO. — The  1807  Reorganization  Committee 

When  the  bill  for  all  this  incapacity  had  been  settled  at 
Jena,  and  the  State  of  Prussia  was  prostrate,  then  it  was 
seen  that  something  must  be  done.  Accordingly  the  organi- 
zation committee  was  converted  into  a  reorganization  commit- 
tee, and,  what  was  of  more  importance,  civilians  were  ap- 
pointed members  of  it.  To  them  it  is  due  that  afterward  some 
vestige  of  a  new  spirit  prevailed.  It  was,  however,  only  a 
vestige,  for  in  this  reorganization  committee  two  opinions 
fought  for  predominance.  Every  one  was  agreed  as  to  the 
desirability  of  having  as  many  soldiers  as  possible,  and  as  to 
its  being  the  duty,  if  practicable,  of  all  citizens  to  enter  the 
army.  That  is,  something  resembling  a  national  army  was 
desired.  The  question,  however,  was  whether  the  people  or 
the  army  should  be  the  first  consideration.  On  the  reorgani- 
zation committee  were  such  men  as  Baron  von  Stein  ^  and 
the  financial  expert  Schon.  Under  the  fructifj'ing  influence 
of  French  Revolutionary  ideas,  they  wanted  to  create  a 
genuine  national  army,  based  on  moral  qualities.  But  they 
had  the  military  party  against  them,  and  particularly  Gneis- 
enau,  who  wanted  to  have  as  few  changes  as  possible,  and 
to  resort  to  universal  service  merely  in  order  to  squeeze  out 
a  larger  contingent  of  recruits  for  the  standing  army. 

An  interesting  memorandum  ^  has  been  preserved,  sub- 
mitted by  Herr  von  Schon  on  December  4,  and  then  handed 
to  Herr  von  Gneisenau  for  his  expert  opinion  thereon.  Herr 
von  Gneisenau  made  marginal  notes  on  it,  which  clearly  show 
that  he  and  his  colleague,  eminent  men  as  they  both  were, 

1  Baron  Heinrich  Friedrich  Karl  von  Stein,  1757-1831.  In  1804  he 
waa  appointed  to  the  Prusaian  Department  of  Trade  and  Manufactures, 
where  he  introduced  apparently  too  many  reforms  to  please  Frederick 
William  III,  and  in  1807  he  resigned. — Translator 

2  Printed  in  the  Supplement  to  the  "Militarwochenblatt,"  for  1846,  pp. 
68  and  69. 


HOW  THE  ARMY  HAS  BEEN  TRANSFORMED  233 

were  as  wide  apart  as  the  poles.  Oue  citation  is  euougJi  to 
show  this.  The  civilian  committee  member  says  that  soldiers 
in  general  must  be  considered  as  the.  flower  of  the  nation, 
righting  all  wrongs,  and  consequently  having  the  highest  vo- 
cation. This  did  not  please  the  militar}-  men,  and  Von  Gneise- 
nau  made  a  marginal  note  insisting  "that  the  whole  nation 
must  realize  that  the  only  way  to  maintain  its  national  exist- 
ence is  to  uphold  its  military  honor. ' ' 

Two  fairy  godmothers,  therefore,  stood  together  by  the 
cradle  of  the  new  Prussian  Army.  The  gift  which  one  wanted 
to  bestow  upon  it  was  the  power  of  righting  wrongs;  while  the 
other  wanted  to  raise  it  above  the  rest  of  mankind  by  endowing 
it  with  ' '  a  soldier 's  special  honor, ' '  a  phrase  which  must  then 
have  been  newly  coined. 

Prussia,  therefore,  was  faced  by  the  problem  of  whether  she 
meant  to  become  a  national  army  or  to  remain  a  military' 
state.  These  two  phrases  show  quite  clearly  that  we  have 
here  a  distinction  which  cannot  be  expressed  in  concrete  terms. 
Both  signify  that  army  and  people  are  one  and  indivisible, 
and  yet  we  know  that  the  two  notions  are  worlds  apart.  The 
result  of  the  one  is  Switzerland,  that  of  the  other  Prussia 
and  Germany,  the  other  countries  lying  somewhere  between 
these  two  extremes. 

It  is  easy  to  divine'  why  the  democratic  tendencies  of  Stein 
and  his  followers  were  not  allowed  to  prevail.  General  von 
Boyen,^  many  years  Prussian  minister  of  war,  once  expressly 
stated  that  "the  example  of  the  free  States  of  North  America 
and  of  Switzerland  proves  that  even  now  it  is  possible  to 
manage  by  arming  the  people  in  this  way."  The  militia, 
indeed,  he  continued,  must  not  be  considered  as  "resulting 
from  the  republican  form  of  Government  -  in  these  two  coun- 

1  "Beitrage  zur  Charakteristik  dos  Generals  v.  Scharnhorst" 
("Side  Lights  ou  the  Character  of  General  von  Scharnhorst")  by  H. 
von  Boyen. 

'•;  1  have  added  Ihe  word  "republican"  in  order  to  make  the  quotation 
from  Boyen  iiilelligible.  Tlie  autiior  himself  ia  very  careful  not  to 
use  any  tuch  word,  and  leaves  it  to  tlie  reader  to  guess. 


234  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

tries."  Other  republics,  for  instance  Holland,  Carthage, 
Genoa,  and  Venice,  have  maintained  considerable  standing 
armies,  as  Boyen  himself  quite  truly  observes. 

Thus,  although  Boyen  arrives  at  no  result,  nevertheless 
his  few  words  of  comparison  contain  the  truth,  indeed  the 
whole  truth.  He  did  not,  indeed,  express  it,  but  possibly 
he  suspected  it.  The  kind  of  government  matters  no  more 
than  the  iDarticular  kind  of  army.  What  matters  is  what 
is  intended  to  be  done  with  the  armies.  Carthage  wanted  to 
conquer  Spain  and  Sicily;  Holland  to  conquer  the  East  Indies 
and  neighboring  territory;  Venice  and  Genoa  fought  for 
the  predominance  in  the  Mediterranean.  Switzerland  and 
North  America,  however,  do  not  want  to  conquer  anything; 
they  use  their  armies  only  for  defense,  and  consequently  man- 
age with  truly  national  armies. 

Boyen  must  have  held  some  such  opinion,  for  he  was  a  great 
student  of  Scharnhorst,  and  Scharnhorst  expressly  states  that 
militia  is  only  suitable  for  defensive  warfare.  It  is  obvious, 
indeed,  that  a  national  army  composed  of  citizens  all  engaged 
in  various  occupations  ought  never  to  take  up  arms  except 
when  compelled  to  do  so  in  self-defense.  The  robber  attacks, 
the  citizen  defends  himself. 

Now,  in  every  country  peacefully  inclined  persons  are  in 
the  majority,  and  the  circumstance  that  aggressive  armies  were 
formed  from  these  peaceful  citizens  did  much  to  deprave 
politics  in  the  nineteenth  century.  Imaginary  contrasts  had 
to  be  drawn,  and,  at  any  rate,  some  enthusiasm  artitically 
created,  which  partly  explains  the  enthusiastic  attachment  to 
the  hereditary  monarchical  principle  and  the  racial  patriot- 
ism characteristic  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

Genuine  national  armies,  however,  and  true  militia  are  in 
reality  eminently  peaceful  institutions,  being  in  their  very 
nature,  suited  to  home  defense,  but  not  for  aggression.  What 
causes  the  professional  soldier  to  look  down  on  them,  causes 
the  civilian  to  admire  them.  And  these  are  the  kind  of 
armies  we  must»have  if  we  are  serious  in  our  desire  for  peace. 


HOW  THE  ARMY  HAS  BEEN  TRANSFORMED   235 

Whoever  advocates  other  armies  is  forging  instruments  of 
war,  and  is  therefore  responsible  if  his  instruments  in  their 
turn  do  not  infallibly  bring  about  war. 

§  81. — The  Reaction  of  the  Military  Party 

Scharuhorst,  however,  wanted  armies  for  war,  and  it  was  his 
plans  which  were  approved  by  King  Frederick  William  III, 
in  whose  absolute  power  the  ultimate  decision  lay.  The  peo- 
ple about  this  time  were  beginning  to  think  of  themselves  as 
Germans;  and  in  1813  they  went  to  war  not  to  maintain 
Prussia,  but  to  obtain  Germany.  Then  and  even  later  it  would 
have  been  easy  to  have  had  a  large  German  National  Army, 
if  it  had  been  desired  to  do  so.  But  nothing  of  the  sort  was 
desired,  and  the  only  concession  to  the  new  era  at  length  wning 
from  those  in  power  was  craftily  to  allow  the  people  to  imagine 
themselves  to  be  forming  a  national  army. 

It  has  often  been  scornfully  observed  that  the  only  demo- 
cratic idea  which  has  gained  a  foothold  is  that  of  national 
armies,  and  that  they  fought  the  battles  of  1914.  Such  a  re- 
proach does  not  apply  to  Germany;  she  has  never  had  a  true 
national  army,  and  what  feeble  attempts  at  anything  of  the 
sort  were  made  during  the  troublous  times  of  the  Wars  of 
Liberation  were  strangled  by  professional  soldiers  before  they 
could  really  come  to  anything. 

The  military  party  is  to  be  admired  for  the  logical  persist- 
ency with  which  it  has  succeeded  in  enforcing  its  will.  In 
the  first  period  of  alaim  civilians  were  appointed  to  the  re- 
organization committee;  and  the  first  thing  done  was  to  bow 
them  out  with  vast  politeness.  Thus  the  military  men  were 
by  themselves  once  more,  and  could  reorganize.  True,  it  was 
not  upon  extremists  such  as  Gneisenau  that  the  work  of  reor- 
ganization fell,  but  on  the  more  moderate  Scharnliorst,  who, 
however,  was  always,  as  Herr  von  Sehon  called  him,  a  "regu- 
lar"  (soldier  of  the  lirieK 

In  his  first  memorniulnm  of  July  21,  1807,'  Scharuhorst  still 

'  Ivt'printed  in  the  "Mililarwuclicnblult"  for   lS4(i,  pp.  88-90. 


236  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

insists  absolutely  on  the  aristocratic  importance  of  the  stand- 
ing army,  which  he  thinks  ought  to  continue  to  be  obliged  to 
serve  twenty  years.  Besides  this,  however,  he  wished  to  or- 
ganize a  provincial  militia  or  yeomanry,  but  solely  for  the 
purpose  "of  maintaining  order  in  the  country  itself,  assisting 
the  police,  protecting  the  country  from  the  depredations  of 
marauders,  and  preventing  enemy  incursions."  He  also 
thought  it  possible  that  later  on  the  militia  "might  defend 
the  country,  together  with  the  regular  troops." 

Scharnhorst  therefore,  is  chiefly  thinking  of  somewhat  bet- 
ter organized  citizen  guards,  and  it  certainly  never  occurred 
to  him  that  such  a  national  army  could  be  used  for  purposes 
of  aggression.  Graduallj'',  however,  this  "militia,"  as  it  was 
intended  to  be,  became  increasingly  diverted  from  its  original 
purposes  of  defense  pure  and  simple.  The  very  next  year 
he  completed  his  "Preliminary  Draft  Constitution  for  Pro- 
vincial Troops,"^  in  which  he  goes  a  step  further.  In  §  8, 
for  instance,  he  says:  "The  Provincial  Troops  are  intended  to 
insure  order  within  the  country  itself,  and  to  defend  it  against 
enemy  attack.  They  shall  only  leave  the  province  when  the 
safety  of  the  monarchy  requires  them  to  do  so."  Here  we 
have  the  troops  already  permitted  to  leave  their  province  and 
available  for  use  throughout  Prussia.  There  is  still  no  word, 
however,  of  their  being  employed  outside  the  kingdom.  IMore- 
over,  certain  democratic  guaranties  are  provided,  as,  for  in- 
stance (§  17),  that  the  militia  should  be  under  officers  chosen 
by  themselves,  chosen  first  of  all  by  "all  the  members  in  a 
regiment,"  and  so  forth. 

But  nothing  came  of  all  these  projects.  The  only  thing 
which  did  come  about  was  the  so-called  Scharnhorst  system, 
the  sole  purpose  of  which  was  to  increase  the  standing  army. 
The  military  men  had  failed  to  keep  abreast  of  the  new  times. 

1  Reprinted  in  the  supplement  to  the  "Militarwochenblatt"  for  184f) 
(Jan.-Oct.)  pp.  62-67.  The  number  of  soldiers  provided  for  would 
correspond  to  about  two  millions  in  modern  Germany,  taking  account  of 
the  population. 


HOW  THE   ARxMY  HAS  BEExN  TRANSFORMED      237 


3. — THE   PRUSSIAN   MILITIA 

^82.— The  People's  Militia 

In  January,  1813,  came  the  astonishing  news  that  Napo- 
leon s  great  allied  army  had  perished  in  the  arctic  Russian 
winter,  and,  as  can  be  imagined,  all  German  patriots  imme- 
diately desired  to  fall  upon  the  prostrate  tyrant.  But  the 
standing  army  was  not  large  enough,  and  there  was  no  militia. 
Then  the  estates  of  East  Prussia  set  to  work,  and  what  the 
Government,  with  all  its  discussion,  had  not  been  able  to  do 
in  twenty  years,  the  people  achieved  in  ten  weeks. 

On  December  30,  1812,  York  von  Wartenburg  had  gone 
over  to  the  Russians,  and  on  January  8  he  reached  Konigsberg 
with  his  troops,  thus  conferring  a  certain  amount  of  freedom 
of  movement  on  the  citizens.  On  January  31,  Minister  von 
Stein  arrived  in  Konigsberg,  and  although  he  lost  no  time  in 
falling  out  with  York,  and  was  in  fact  officially  ruled  abso- 
lutely out  of  count ;  still,  in  the  ensuing  deliberations,  there  is 
no  mistaking  his  influence  and  likewise  that  of  President  von 
Schon,  who  was  also  in  Konigsberg.  On  February  5,  Privy 
Councilor  von  Brand  being  in  the  chair,  a  meeting  of  deiouties 
of  the  estates  was  held,  which  appointed  a  committee  of  seven, 
consisting  of  Dohna,  Heidemann,  Hinz,  Keber,  Lehndorf- 
Steinorth,  and  Schimmelpfennig;  and  on  February  7  the 
"Konigsberg  Decisions,"  together  with  the  complete  draft  of 
a  scheme  of  organization,  were  sent  to  the  king.  Thus  the 
deliberations  were  over  in  four  days,  and  in  four  months  the 
trodps  were  levied,  thoroughly  trained,  and  alreadj^  confront- 
ing the  enemy. 

These  militia  regiments  were  welcomed.  To  be  grateful  for 
anything  long  being  distasteful,  however,  military  men  soon 
set  about  proving  that  it  was  not  the  estates  who  suggested 
the  training  of  the  militia,  but  the  king.  It  was  actually  as- 
serted that  Schamhorst  was  the  father  of  the  militia ;  that  he 
had  discussed  his  project  for  it  with  his  disciple  Clausewitz, 


238  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

who  had  worked  it  out  in  detail  and  afterward  taken  it  to 
Russia;  that  then  he  had  gone  with  the  Russians  to  Konigs- 
berg,  and  thus  Count  Dohna  had  come  to  know  of  the  plan. 
For  us,  however,  this  question  of  who  was  first  is  of  small 
interest. 

As  already  stated,  there  were  many  projects  for  a  national 
levy;  and  in  any  case  it  can  hardly  be  called  particularly 
original  to  suggest  that,  if  an  army  is  destroyed,  the  surviving 
civilians  should  come  to  the  rescue.  Everything  depended 
on  the  spirit  which  was  to  animate  this  new  army.  Stein  and 
Schon  wanted  it  to  be  as  far  as  possible  purely  for  defense, 
and  therefore  a  factor  in  the  promotion  of  civilization :  whereas 
Scharnhorst  wanted  it  to  be  for  attack,  and  consequently 
something  which  many  consider  opposed  to  civilization. 

Eventually  the  military  party  was  victorious ;  and  this  being 
so,  and  Stein  being,  after  all,  merely  an  episode  in  Prussia,  it 
must  unquestionably  be  admitted  that  it  is  not  he  and  Schon 
who  were  the  fathers  of  the  modern  army,  but  Gneisenau  and 
Scharnhorst. 

The  main  points  of  the  Konigsberg  decisions  are  as  follows : 

The  militia  was  not  to  be  called  up  unless  and  until  the 
enemy  was  advancing  over  the  frontier,  and  it  was  to  be  em- 
ployed only  in  its  own  province  (§1). 

It  was  to  be  based  on  universal  liability  to  serve;  but  men 
in  holy  orders  and  all  descriptions  of  teachers  were  absolved, 
except  otSciating  priests  exceptionally  highly  qualified  for 
their  ofifice  (§2). 

The  military  authorities  must  have  a  say  in  the  appointment 
of  officers  (§7). 

§  83.— T/ie  Eoyal  Militia 

In  course  of  time  all  these  regulations  were  modified.  The 
king  and  his  advisers  took  only  six  weeks  to  revise  the  de- 
cisions; but  this  was  long  enough  to  enable  them  to  abolish 
the  purely  defensive  purpose  of  the  militia.  Being  still  anx- 
ious, however,  to  get  something  out  of  the  people,  they  were 


HOW  THE  AR:\IY  HAS  BEEN  TRANSFORMED      239 

careful  not  to  let  their  intentions  be  known.  Hence,  quite 
contrary  to  custom,  the  royal  ordinance  of  ^larch  17,  1813, 
contains  no  indication  whatever  as  to  the  object  of  the  new 
army  regulations.  The  ordinance,  indeed,  is  so  very  skilfully 
worded  as  at  first  sight  to  create  an  impression  that  the 
militia  were  in  general  to  be  employed  only  in  the  country 
itself.  Thus  in  §  10  it  is  expressly  stated  that  the  militia 
may  also  be  employed  "outside  their  own  district,"  which 
every  sensible  person  would  interpret  as  meaning  that  they 
could  be  employed  anj-where  in  their  native  province,  as  stated 
in  the  Kcinigsberg  Decisions.  But  any  sensible  person  would 
have  been  wrong,  and  the  Government  quite  right.  France, 
for  instance,  and  all  the  rest  of  the  world,  are  also  outside 
any  particular  district. 

A  few  unimportant  apparent  liberties  M^ere  temporarily 
maintained,  but  election  only  by  the  soldiers  themselves  was 
manifestlj'  a  farce,  and  of  the  237  higher  and  statf  militia 
officers  only  two  per  cent,  were  civilians,  and  not  a  single 
brigadier  was  so.  ^loreover,  in  §  17  it  was  decreed  that  the 
militia  was  subject  to  the  discipline  of  the  standing  army, 
which  amounted  to  its  being  virtually  wholly  at  the  mercy  of 
the  caprice  of  the  chief  war  lords.  This  set  the  final  seal  to  the 
fate  of  the  militia  as  a  defensive  organization.  It  was  now 
to  develop  into  the  most  powerful  instrument  of  attack  ever 
known  in  the  history  of  the  world. 

In  the  succeeding  century  the  Prussian  militia  was  syste- 
matically transformed  into  an  instrument  of  war.  It  had 
acquitted  itself  admirably  of  its  original  task;  but  even  when 
it  mustered  the  advantage  of  the  voluntary  system  was  clear. 
Those  who  did  not  come  spontaneously,  like  the  East  Prus- 
sians, did  not  come  willingly  in  obedience  to  the  king's  com- 
mand six  weeks  later.  In  Pomerania  the  militia  took  a  very 
long  while  to  assemble;  in  West  Prussia  hardly  any  one  re- 
sponded to  the  call  to  arms;  in  parts  of  Silesia  and  also  in 
Brandenburg  rebellion  broke  out.^ 

1  Tliiis    llcrr    FItsclie,    cliiff    of    police,    reported    on    April    10,    1813, 


240  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

In  the  West  Elbe  provinces,  however,  where  the  general 
level  of  education  was  higher,  particularly  in  Westphalia, 
matters  went  very  badly.  Here  the  people  knew  not  only 
what  French  occupation,  but  also  what  French  democratic 
rule,  meant,  and  the  Prussian  commissioners  met  with  angry 
resistance  everywhere.  Moreover,  when  the  line  troops  and 
gendarmes  at  last  succeeded  in  hunting  up  the  people,  they 
forthwith  began  to  desert.  It  is  important  to  form  a  true 
idea  of  how  matters  really  stood  then.  Some  certainly  did 
volunteer,  but  the  great  majority  of  the  army  followed  the 
drum  on]}'  because  compelled  to  do  so. 

Nevertheless,  the  militia  did  free  and  protect  the  country, 
and  it  did  achieve  distinction  (and  likewise  suffered  heavily) 
in  the  battles  of  1813.  When  the  year  ended,  the  enemy  had 
been  driven  back  across  the  Rhine,  and  the  work  of  the  militia 
was  over. 

§  84. — The  Transformation  During  the  Wars  of  Liberation 

Meanwhile  the  guardians  of  the  country,  who  ought  to  have 
been  standing  keeping  faithful  watch  upon  the  Rhine,  had 
come  "to  think  there  was  something  very  fine  about  hunting," 
and  on  January  1,  1814,  when  the  first  army  corps  under 
Bliicher  crossed  the  Rhine  and  thus  advanced  into  enemy  ter- 
ritory, it  included  about  seven  thousand  militiamen.  They 
were  thus  actually  employed  even  outside  the  country  for  of- 
fensive purposes,  although  they  did  not  give  a  particularly 
glorious  account  of  themselves.  Indeed,  the  1814  campaign  in 
general  added  little  to  the  glory  of  Prussian  military  annals. 

Gradually,  however,  even  the  decision  that  universal  liability 

from  Potsdam,  "that  a  large  proportion  of  the  militiamen  did  not 
appear,  and  those  who  did  ventured  to  manifest  their  displeasure  by 
making  a  noise.  Some  did  not  take  the  oath  at  all,  and  tried  to  en- 
tourage those  about  them  to  do  likewise."  The  chief  of  police  waa 
grieved  "to  have  to  say  this  about  the  inhabitants  of  a  city  which 
at  all  times  has  enjoyed  the  favor  of  your  Majesty  to  quite  an  ex- 
ceptionally great  extent  "  Most  other  people,  however,  will  think  it 
scarcely  astonishing  that  the  very  town  to  rebel  was  the  one  which 
knew  better  than  anv  other  what  militarism  meant. 


HOW  THE  ARMY  HAS  BEEN  TRANSFORMED   241 

to  serve  should  be  merely  a  temporary  expedient  for  the  war 
was  evaded.  True,  after  the  Allies  had  taken  Paris,  after 
Napoleon's  abdication  and  the  return  of  the  troops  to  their 
own  country,  Frederick  William  III  would  fain  have  kept  his 
promise,  and  repealed  the  ordinance  imposing  on  every  young 
man  the  obligation  to  present  himself  for  military  service.^ 
The  king's  loyal  intention,  however,  caused  a  revolution  in 
the  palace:  there  was  a  change  in  the  ministry  of  war,  and 
his  ^Majesty  was  informed  once  for  all  that  kingly  promises 
must  not  be  put  on  an  equality  with  those  of  other  mortals. 
Consequently  on  September  3,  1814,  a  law  was  promulgated, 
countersigned  by  all  the  ministers  (Stein,  of  course,  was  no 
longer  minister),  and  enacting,  without  any  beating  about  the 
bush,  that  "the  institutions  therefore,  to  which  this  great 
success  is  owing,  and  the  maintenance  of  which  is  desired  hy 
the  whole  nation,  shall  form  the  main  principles  of  the  coun- 
try's military  constitution." 

Now,  if  a  national  army  had  been  then  introduced,  per- 
haps there  would  have  been  souie  justification  for  speaking  of 
the  desire  of  the  nation ;  but  the  Government  had  realized 
that  the  popular  institution  of  a  militia  could  quite  well  be 
utilized  to  increase  the  army  proper,  and  this  new  law  was 
intended  to  cover  the  transition  from  the  defensive  militia  to 
the  large  and  olt'ensive  army. 

First,  in  the  preamble  to  the  bill,  the  character  of  the  militia 
is  clearly  defined  even  for  peace-time. 

Secondly,  reservists  who  had  served  their  full  time  were 
consigned  to  the  militia  (§  8,  b.  and  c).  Hitherto  the  militia 
had  been  an  independent  institution,  and  it  was  allowable  sud- 
denly to  put  it  on  a  level  with  the  standing  army,  especially  in 
view  of  popular  sentiment.  From  henceforth  this  distinc- 
tion begins  to  disappear. 

Thirdly,  it  was  expressly  decreed  (§  8)  that  the  first-line 
militia  (up  to  the  thirty-second  year)  was  to  be  employed 
abroad,  though  it  is  trae  that  the  second-line  militia  (up  to 

1  Order  in  cabinet  of  May  27,  1814. 


242  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

the  tliirty-uinth  year)  might  be  employed  in  general  only  in 
the  country  itself,  and  the  last-line  (thirty-nine  and  over) 
only  in  their  native  province. 

Many  paijsages  of  this  law  are  by  no  means  clear,  which  is 
not  surprising  when  it  is  remembered  that  the  people  had  not 
yet  forgotten  the  freedom  promised  them  in  1813.  It  was 
first  put  in  force  in  1815.  In  181-1  the  militia  overstepped  its 
original  limits  only  because  the  military  rendered  tiiis  im- 
perative. But  now  that  Napoleon  was  for  the  second  time  on' 
the  throne  of  France  the  Allies  determined  to  attack  that 
country;  and  although  on  this  occasion  the  seat  of  war  was 
territory  which  was  and  always  had  been  outside  the  country, 
yet  the  militia  were  instantly  called  up  and  sent  abroad.  It 
was  thought  needful  to  tell  them  in  extenuation  that,  "having 
won  their  independence,  it  was  now  necessary  to  fight  to  insure 
it."  Thus  still  more  of  the  defensive  nature  of  the  militia 
was  laid  aside. 

4. — MILITARISM   IN   THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY 

§  85. — The  New  Militia 

Here  endeth  the  history  of  the  old  militia.  Its  place  was 
taken  by  another,  new  in  almost  every  respect  save  the  name 
and  the  cross,  as  Brauer  himself  admits  in  his  "History  of  the 
Prussian  Militia."  It  was  an  adroit  piece  of  statesmanship 
on  the  part  of  the  Prussian  Government  to  have  used  the  popu- 
lar name  of  militia  in  order,  in  the  course  of  half  a  century 
of  peace,  to  forge  therefrom  a  keen-edged,  passive  instrument 
of  aggression.  That  it  meant  to  do  this  and  did  it  justifies 
the  charge  of  militarism  against  the  Prussian  Government ; 
but  its  success  also  proves  that  there  must  have  been  some 
militarism  among  the  Prussian  people. 

The  authorities  behaved  as  if  they  still  conformed  to  the 
1814  law,  and  on  November  21,  1815,  they  issued  a  "]\Iilitia 
Ordinance."  Even  here  provision  is  made  for  the  civilian 
authorities  having  a  voice  in  the  election  of  officers,  but  with 


HOW  THE  ARMY  HAS  BEEN  TRANSFORMED   243 

restrictions.  The  preamble  still  states  that  militia  exists  for 
home  defense,  and  the  second-line  militia  are  still  to  be  em- 
ployed only  in  their  native  provinces.  Moreover,  a  few  un- 
trained men  were  still  included  in  the  militia,  thus  making  it 
appear  more  or  less  an  improvised  force  intended  for  defense. 
But  already  the  metamorphose  was  being  prepared.  "Whereas 
in  1814  it  was  frankly  stated  that  the  militia  were  to  be  dis- 
banded in  peace,  the  stafi'-officers  and  a  few  soldiers  are  now 
retained,  about  fifty  per  regiment;  but  these  staff-officers 
were  before  long  developed  into  so-called  nuclei  of  about  150 
men  per  battalion.  Each  year  this  standing  army  was  en- 
larged, until  by  1819  their  number  had  risen  to  635.  And  all, 
as  the  king  used  to  say,  "in  recognition  of  the  splendid  en- 
thusiasm shown  by  the  inhabitants  with  regard  to  the  militia." 
By  ordinance  of  March  25,  1814,  even  the  militia  uniform 
was  altered,  "in  order  intimately  to  connect  them,  even  in 
externals,  with  the  standing  army." 

The  game  could  now  begin,  and,  after  all,  its  rules  were  very 
simple.  As  the  entire  "nation  in  arms"  could  not  be  included 
in  a  standing  army,  or  in  any  other  organization  of  the  kind, 
at  all  events  not  all  at  once,  the  militia  was  first  of  all  re- 
duced {  !),  and  then  assimilated  to  the  standing  army.  Then, 
after  the  public  had  had  time  to  get  used  to  this  measure,  the 
militia  was  increased  again.  In  principle  the  same  thing  hap- 
pened afterward  almost  every  time  that  the  standing  army 
was  increased.  New  regiments  were  created  without  adding 
to  the  number  of  troops,  but  merely  by  transferring  them 
from  one  regiment  to  another.  For  instance,  three  regiments 
of  four  battalions  would  be  converted  into  four  regiments  of 
three.  Then  after  a  certain  lapse  of  time  these  small  regi- 
ments were  declared  "unsuitable  for  active  service,"  and  men 
were  called  for  to  make  up  the  missing  four  battalions. 

Thus  militia  reser\'e  regiments,  militia  instruction  battal- 
ions, and  other  new  formations  came  into  existence,  and  in 
1821  the  Government  could  already  dispose  of  over  126,000 
militia  so-called,  besides  136,000  troops  of  the  line.     The  mi- 


244  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

litia  were  intended  for  incorporaton  in  the  army  for  active 
service,  and  thus  were  quite  openly  included  in  the  offensive 
army.  There  were  besides  some  100,000  second-line  troops, 
mainly  militia,  described  as  an  army  of  occupation. 

§  86. — Army  and  Revolution 

These  organizations  were-  altogether  very  adroitly  created 
to  insure  closer  connection  with  the  troops  of  the  line.  In 
this  there  was  a  twofold  object :  to  acquire  one  uniform  weapon 
against  the  foreigner,  and  also,  as  must  never  be  forgotten,  at 
the  same  time  to  glue  the  "enemy  at  home,"  utterly  routed 
as  he  was,  so  firmly  into  the  army  as  to  be  able  to  use  them  as 
a  weapon  for  fighting  this  very  enemy.  That  is,  to  fight  the 
militia  system  with  militiameu.  Thus  officers  in  the  militia 
guards  were  entirely  abolished,  and  their  places  taken  by 
officers  of  the  guards  who  had  ser-ved  their  time.  Yet  con- 
servative soldiers  of  the  stamp  of  General  von  der  Marwitz 
still  spoke  of  the  whole  military  system  as  a  damned  demo- 
cratic idea,  and  although  the  militia  gave  a  good  account  of 
itself  in  suppressing  the  Polish  insurrection  of  1830,  even 
until  1848  it  was  a  question  as  to  how  it  would  behave  in  case 
of  .a  revolution  of  the  German  element  in  it,  despite  all  the 
officers  of  the  guards. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  even  when  the  militia  was  called  up 
in  1848,  a  large  number  of  them  proved  refractory,  and  "out- 
rageous excesses"  occurred,  resulting  in  many  bodies  of  militia 
being  deprived  of  their  colors,  in  token  of  their  unworthiness. " 
But  now  that  they  stood  in  battle-array  between  the  soldiers  of 
the  line,  they  learned  fast  enough  to  fight  against  their  felloM'- 
citizens.  Indeed,  it  seems  as  if  the  militiamen  bore  a  par- 
ticular grudge  against  those  who  had  caused  "unseemly  tu- 
mults" and  thus  obliged  them  to  do  anything  so  much  against 
the  grain  as  to  join  the  colors.  Briiuer  (Vol.  II,  p.  162)  even 
states  that  this  hatred  fre(iuently  found  vent  in  "shooting 
prisoners  dead  and  massacring  enemies  found  concealed  in 
conquered  places." 


HOW  THE  ARMY  HAS  BEEN  TRANSFORMED  245 

At  this  period,  indeed,  the  German  militiamen  do  not  seem 
to  have  lost  all  sense  of  shame,  for  Lieutenant-Colonel  von 
Bonin  says,  describing  the  evacuation,  of  some  insurgents' 
houses:  "The  invading  parties  came  out  again  with  blood- 
stained bayonets  without  boasting  further  of  their  perform- 
ances. This  testified  to  a  certain  bashfulness  on  the  part  of 
the  young  soldiers,  as  if  they  were  not  sure  whether  they 
had  done  right." 

To  cure  such  bashfulness,  the  authorities  had  a  good  remedy. 
They  recollected  that  in  general  it  was  better  in  civil  wars 
to  employ  soldiers  from  other  parts,  and  indeed  the  Prussian 
militiamen  in  Posen,  in  the  Rhenish  Palatinate,  and  Baden 
could  not  have  been  accused  of  any  lack  of  dash.  Moreover, 
it  was  the  militia  who  were  most  energetic.  Thus  Staroste 
writes :  ^ 

I  have  endeavored  to  ascertain  the  feeling  and  opinions  of  Prus- 
sian military  men  concerning  tbe  Palatinate  movement.  I  have  not 
found  a  single  real  democrat  among  them,  at  all  events  not  one  who 
would  hax^e  expressed  his  democratic  leanings.  Whenever  they 
catch  sight  of  a  tattered  individual,  they  at  once  call  him  a  demo- 
crat. Even  the  Khineliinder  is  boiling  over  with  hatred  of  democrats 
and  political  agitators,  and  the  Prussians  are  still  worse;  hut  worst 
of  all  are  the  militia! 

The  so-called  "Baden"  campaign  at  least  proved  the  capa- 
bility of  Prussian  militia.  There  was  no  doubt  whatever  that 
it  was  not  really  militia  at  all  or  a  people  s  army,  but  a 
princely  guard.  Old  Marvvitz  and  men  of  that  sort  were  "idi- 
otic pessimists,"  and  thus  nothing  any  longer  stood  in  tlie  \\i\y 
uf  the  militia  being  speedily  and  very  greatly  enlarged. 

A  beginning  was  made  l)y  simply  not  entirely  disbanding 
it  when  this  ought  to  iiave  been  done,  after  the  mobilization 
of  1850,  but  keeping  back  two  hundred  men  as  the  "nucleus 
i.r  M   company."     Then   followed   events  too  well   known   to 

I  '  tarnste's*  •"  I  ii'ieluich  tiber  die  Ereioniiaae  in  der  Pfalz  und  in  Haden" 

i    ii..        .ii   ilic   l!\vMi(-  ill  tlie  Pidatiiic  ami   l!uden"J.     Vol.  1,  p    199. 


246  THE  BIOLOGY  OP  WAR 

recapitulate,  the  organization  of  1S71,  which  led  to  another 
dispute,  and  then  the  enormous  increases  of  the  army  after 
1871,  which  led  to  no  more  disputes.  And  then  the  German 
Empire's  wonderful  military  mechanism  was  ready,  emperor 
and  princes,  parliament  and  people,  having  all  slaved  together 
hard  to  bring  it  about. 

It  took  precisely  a  hundred  years.  In  1814  the  militia  in- 
vaded France.  In  1914  even  the  last-line  troops  were  em- 
ployed in  attacking  the  enemy  abroad.  A  year  ago,  when  this 
first  happened  in  Belgium,  a  reassuring  notice  was  issued 
about  its  being  "merely  to  occupy  the  newl}'  acquired  parts 
of  the  country,  which  were  already  as  good  as  German  terri- 
tory." Since  then,  however,  last-line  troops  militia  and  Ime 
troops  have  been  used  absolutelj''  indiscriminately,  thereby 
effacing  the  last  reminiscences  of  the  militia  having  once  been 
an  integral  part  of  the  country's  "system  of  defense." 

The  German  last-line  troops  now  are  virtually'  nowhere 
fighting  on  German  soil.  The  majority  of  the  German  people 
are  glad  about  this,  as  they  are  quite  entitled  to  be;  but  in 
so  far  as  they  have  still  any  desire  to  think  for  themselves, 
they  must  admit  that  it  means  that  the  militia  are  being 
employed  for  purposes  the  opposite  of  those  for  which  they 
were  originally  created.  There  may  be  a  great  deal  to  be 
said  for  this,  but  from  the  point  of  view  of  peace  and 
progress  it  is  singularly  regrettable. 

§  86a. — Universal  Military  Service  in  Europe 

In  all  countries,  free  Albion  excepted,  events  have  taken  a 
similar  course,  thus  bringing  about  the  institution  of  stand- 
ing armies,  which  theorists  ignorant  of  the  world  and  self- 
seeking  politicians  ^  have  described  as  guaranteeing  peace, 
and  which  could  not  fail  to  lead  to  the  disaster  of  1914. 

I  have  endeavored  to  describe  how  this  singular  institution 

1  Heal  Folttiker.  1  have  intentionally  chosen  this  courteous  epithet, 
but  future  generations  are  more  likely  to  call  them,  more  aptly, 
"fools  and  criminals." 


HOW  THE  ARMY  HAS  BEEN  TRANSFORMED   247 

actually  came  Into  existence,  and  in  particular  to  show  that 
in  reality  univ-ersal  liabiUiu  to  serve  is  merely  a  great  historical 
misconception  of  the  universal  duty  of  hearing  arms.  This 
is  so  clear  from  the  facts  cited  that  the  attentive  reader  will 
perhaps  even  believe  it ;  but  I  am  convinced  that  a  dry  record 
of  facts  and  tigures  cannot  possibly  touch  an}'  one's  feelings. 
But  as  I  want  such  events  to  stir  the  conscience  even  of  the 
dullest  mortal,  I  am  recapitulating  all  the  facts  in  this  chapter, 
clothing  them  in  the  words  of  a  poet  ^  trying  to  make  a  foolish 
world  give  ear  to  his  words  of  wisdom  and  despair.  As  for 
his  chief  character,  Choulefte,  in  his  view  "le  regime  actuel 
n'etait  qu'hypocrisie  et  brutalite.  Le  militarisme  lui  faisait 
horreur. "     Choulette  says: 

"La  caserne  est  ime  invention  hideuse  des  temps  modemes.  Elle 
ne  romonte  qu'au  XVII  siecle.  Avant.  on  n'avaid  que  le  bon  corps 
de  prarde  oil  les  soudards  jouaient  aux  cartes  et  faisaient  des  eontes 
de  Merlusine.  Louis  XIV  est  un  precurseur  -  de  la  Convention  et 
de  Bonaparte.  Mais  le  mal  a  atteint  sa  plenitude  depuis  I'institu- 
tion  monstrueuse  du  service  pour  tous.  Avoir  fait  une  obligation 
aux  liomnies  de  tuer,  c'est  la  honte  des  empereurs  ^  et  des  rcpub- 
liqut's,  le  crime  des  crimes.  Aux  ages  qu'on  dit  barbares,  les  villes 
et  les  princes  confiaient  leur  defense  a  des  mercenaires  qui  faisaient 
la  guerre  en  gens  avises  et  pnidenls:  il  n'y  avait  parfois  que  cinq  ou 
six  luorts  dans  une  grande  bataille.  Et  quand  les  chevaliers  alla- 
ient  en  guerre,  du  nioins  n'y  etaient-ils  point  forces;  lis  se  faisaient 
tuer  pour  leur  plaisir.  Sans  doute  n'etaient-ils  bons  qu'a  eel  a. 
Personne,  au  temps  de  saint  Louis,  n'aurait  eu  I'idee  d'envoyer  ?i  la 
bataille  un  homme  de  savoir  et  d'entendenient.  Et  I'on  n'arracliait 
pas  non  plus  le  laboureur  a  la  glebe  pour  le  mener  a  I'ost.  Main- 
tenant  on  fait  un  devoir  a  un  pauvre  paysen  d'etre  soldat.  On 
I'exile  de  la  maison  dont  le  toit  fume  dans  le  silence  dore  du  soir, 

1  "Le  Lys  Rouge,"  by  Anatole  France.  Calmanl>4vy :  Paris,  pp.  116- 
IIS, 

-  Anatole  France  is  a  Frenchman,  a  good  Frcncliman,  too,  and  tlnia 
naturally  feels  douhly  keenly  the  responsibility  of  his  own  country. 
Consequently  it  is  mainly  France  which  he  accuses. 

s  Did  .Anatole  France  ])erlia])s  intentionally  omit  to  mention  the 
United  "Kin<rdom"  of  Great  Britain? 


248  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

des  grasses  prairies  oii  paissent  les  boeufs,  des  champs,  des  bois 
pateraels;  on  lui  enseigne,  dans  la  cour  d'une  vilaine  caserne,  a 
tuer  regulierement  des  bommes;  on  le  menace,  on  I'injurie,  on  le 
met  en  prison;  on  lui  dit  que  c'est  un  bonneur,  et,  s'il  ne  veut  point 
s'bonorer  de  eette  maniere,  on  le  fusille.  11  obeit  parce  qu'il  est 
sujet  a  la  peur  et  de  tous  les  animaux  domestiques  le  plus  doux,  le 
plus  riant  et  le  plus  docile." 

In  this  last  sentence  of  Anatole  France  there  is  much  truth ; 
it  may  be  the  whole  truth.  I  do  not  wish  to  detract  from  the 
weight  of  his  words  by  dissecting  them;  I  would  merely  ask 
the  reader  to  reflect  for  ten  minutes  on  the  following — that 
universal  service  is  a  sign  of  man's  fearsomeness  and  docility, 
of  his  willingness  to  obey  and  his  ever-readiness  to  smile. 

As  I  write,  the  last  act  of  the  drama  is  coming  to  an  end. 
England  seems  inclined  to  introduce  universal  service.  "Only 
for  the  war,"  it  is  added  soothingly;  but  in  Prussia  it  began 
in  just  the  same  way — "only  for  the  war."  It  is  not  for  me 
to  advise  England,  but  I  would  remind  her  of  Schiller's  ref- 
erence to  Her  in  his  "Fleet  Invincible,"  the  finest  utterance  of 
a  free  man  to  a  free  people: 

"Soil  A\irklich  denn  mein  Albion  vergehen, 
Erloschen  meiner  Helden  Stamm, 
Der  Unterdriickung  letzter  Felsendamm 
Zusammenstiirzen,  die  Tyrannenwebre 
Vernicbtet  sem  von  dieser  Hemispbjire? — 
Bang  scbaut  auf  dicb  der  Erdenball 
Und  aller  freien  Manner  Herzen  scblagen, 
Und  alle  guten,  scbiinen  Seelen  klagen, 
Teilnebmend  deines  Rubmes  fall." 

This  time,  however,  matters  are  more  serious.  A  foreign 
military  power  then  menaced  England's  coast,  and  it  was 
scattered  to  the  winds,  as  happens  to  all  military  power ;  but 
this  time  militarism  is  gnawing  at  England's  marrow  from 
the  inside  outward.     It  is  even  ready  to  throw  open  the  door 


HOW  THE  ARMY  HAS  BEEN  TRANSFORMED  249 

to  the  tyrant,  and  then  the  last  bulwark  against  tyranny  will 
be  overthrown. 

It  may  be  that  England's  trial  to-day  is  severer  and  her 
position  more  difficult  than  ever  before;  but  all  the  more 
does  it  become  the  bounden  duty  of  all  Europeans  to  assert 
their  proud  determination  to  break  in  pieces  their  old  swords 
and  to  forge  no  more  new  ones. 

For  if  England  now  introduces  universal  military  service, 
all  Europe  is  her  accomplice,  and  every  man  in  Europe  is  as 
much  responsible  therefor  as  for  the  "unavoidable  conse- 
quences of  the  militarism  of  1914." 


CHAPTER  VII 

Wherein  Patriotism  Is  Rooted 

1. — patriotism  considered  as  an  instinct 
§  87. — Inevitable  Decadence 

"War  is  wrong,  harmful,  and  needless.  Then  why  do  we 
wage  war,  we  twentieth-century  mortals?  And  why  do  we 
even  love  war? 

The  external  causes  for  this  love  of  war  have  already  been 
set  forth,  but  there  is  the  further  fact  that,  without  our  being 
fully  aware  of  it,  war  stirs  us  to  the  very  depths  of  our  being; 
and  that  it  is  perhaps  the  last  groat  carouse  of  which  even  a  de- 
generate nation  can  dream.  Such  simple  things  as  truth  and 
beauty,  freedom  and  progress,  evoke  merely  a  tired  smile, 
like  that  of  an  old  man  recalling  his  j^outhful  follies.  Some- 
thing stronger  and  more  tangible  in  the  M-ay  of  a  stimulant 
is  now  needed  to  arouse  the  enthusiasm.  Such  a  stinndant  for 
a  nation  is  war,  for  an  old  man,  wine.  Verily,  war  is  as  sweet 
wine,  and  should  a  nation  drink  itself  young  again  with  wine, 
this  is  what  Goethe  meant  by  a  "precious  cpiality."  It  is  a 
reminder  of  its  youthful  days,  with  their  wonderful  light- 
heartedness,  their  pardonable  selfishness,  and  their  boundless 
capacity  for  self-sacrifice. 

This  intoxication  is  what  is  great  about  war.  This  it  is 
which  has  inspired  poets  and  painters,  and  any  one  who  has 
ever  witnessed  the  outbreak  of  war  will  admit  that  the  ele- 
mental force  of  sudden  enthusiasm  with  which  vast  num- 
bers of  people  are  suddenly  carried  away  creates  absolutely 
the  impression  of  their  acting  instinctively,  but  never  of  their 
acting  intelligently.  Yet  no  one  will  own  to  having  warlike 
instincts,  for  it  is  with  war,  as  wnth  wine,  which  w^e  love  not 

250 


WHEREIN  PATRIOTISM  IS  ROOTED  251 

for  wine's  sake,  but  for  the  sake  of  the  feeling  which  it  pro- 
duces in  us.  Similarly  human  beings,  at  any  rate  superior 
human  beings,  do  not  love  war  for  its  own  sake,  but  because 
it  awakens  primitive  and  hallowed  sentiments  in  us — senti- 
ments which  we  collectively  call  patriotism.  We  love  war  be- 
cause we  think  it  necessary  to  our  mother-country,  but  without 
patriotism  war  would  be  inconceivable  to-day.  Tolstoy  ^  is 
right :  so  long  as  patriotism  survives  there  will  always  be  war ; 
for,  as  Maupassant-  says,  it  is  ''the  egg  of  wars."  The  war 
giant,  like  Anta'us,  cannot  be  vanquished  as  long  as  it  is  per- 
petually deriving  fresh  strength  from  contact  with  that  love  of 
country  wherein  it  has  its  source. 

To-day  patriotism  seems  more  powerful  than  ever.  Even 
nations  which  have  no  historical  claim  whatever  to  love  their 
country  are  behaving  as  if  this  were  not  the  case.  All  the 
separatism  of  past  centuries  has  been  revived  again  in  this 
patriotism  which  even  the  smallest  tribes,  hitherto  held  to- 
gether by  nothing  whatsoever,  have  suddenly  discovered  in 
themselves.  Even  the  Jews,  who  for  two  thousand  years  were 
scattered  about  among  all  peoples  that  on  earth  do  dwell,  have 
found  out  that  they,  too,  have  a  patriotism,  and  are  becoming 
national  Zionists;  even  the  Americans,  who  are,  after  all, 
quite  a  recent  conglomeration  of  miscellaneous  peoples,  are 
becoming  patriots  and  imperialists.  Such  a  paroxysm  of 
patriotism,  however,  is  suspicious,  and  resembles  the  flaring 
up  of  a  candle  before  it  flickers  out. 

iMen  did  not  become  really  fond  of  yachting  and  horse- 
racing  until  sailing-ships  and  horses  had  been  superseded  by 
better  methods  of  communication.  Similarly  patriotism  did 
not  grow  out  of  bounds  until  it  had  already  ceased  to  be  a 
valuable  factor  in  civilization.  The  principle,  "my  country 
right  or  wrong"  ^  could  not  get  a  hold  on  the  world  until  there 

1  "Patriot  is:in  and  Government,"  in  Tolst03''s  religious  and  ethical 
pamphlets,  \'ol.  II. 

^  "Mon  orule  Sosth^ne,"  by  Gny  de  Maupassant. 

8  In  Englitih  in  the  original,  but  in  bad  English. — Translator 


252  THE  BIOLOGY  OP  WAR 

was  no  longer  a  law  student  in  existence,  not  even  the 
humblest,  who  would  have  ventured  seriously  to  defend  such 
a  dogma;  and  "the  Country"  never  became  a  conception 
transcending  all  others,  and  throwing  all  others  into  the  shade, 
until  mankind  had  already  begun  to  create  "universal  unions" 
and  other  "world-wide  institutions." 

Such  is  the  fate  of  decadence.  But  though  a  man  should 
speak  with  the  tongues  of  men  and  of  angels,  and  prove  with 
flawless  logic  that  war  is  foolish  and  despicable;  and  then 
were  another  to  come  and  say,  "Quite  true,  but  the  country 
wants  it,"  there  would  be  nothing  to  be  done.  The  second 
man  would  come  off  victorious. 

§  88. — The  Commanding  Position  of  Patriotism 

Being  in  the  nature  of  an  instinct,  patriotism  seems  as  if 
it  could  neither  be  exterminated  nor  overcome.  The  reason 
why  war  against  war  is  so  hard  is  just  because  virtually 
every  one  loves  his  own  country  more  devotedly  than  anything 
else  whatsoever.  The  thorough  bass  of  patriotism  drowns  or 
silences  all  other  sentiments.  In  peace  the  Christian  may 
love  God  before  all  else,  and  the  free-thinking  monist  the 
brotherhood  of  man ;  the  esthete  may  put  art  and  its  wondrous 
works  before  everything  else,  and  the  workman  place  socialism 
first :  yet  so  soon  as  war  breaks  out  against  God 's  ordinance, 
when  cathedrals  are  reduced  to  dust,  and  the  international 
bonds  uniting  the  working-classes  and  men  of  science 
throughout  the  world  are  broken  in  sunder,  Christian  and 
freethinker,  esthete  and  working-man,  all  look  on  and  ap- 
prove, while  all  our  other  conceptions  of  truth,  goodness,  and 
beauty  dissolve  before  the  magic  words,  "/or  the  sake  of  the 
country" — that  country  which  men  put  before  religion  and 
art,  science  and  polities,  and  therefore  even  before  civiliza- 
tion, which,  after  all,  is  only  an  abstract  fusion  of  them  all. 

In  thus  setting  the  country  on  high,  we  forget  one  thing. 
At  best  our  country  cannot  be  more  than  the  form  in  which, 
in  our  opinion,  religion,  art,  science,  and  politics,  civilization 


WHEREIN  PATRIOTISM  IS  ROOTED  253 

in  short,  can  best  prosper.  Who  would  really  stoop  so  low  as 
to  esteem  a  people  more  highly  merely  because  he  himself 
belonged  to  it  unless  he  were  profoundly  convinced  of  its 
being  in  every  respect  superior  to  other  nations?  This  is  so 
self-evident  as  far  as  any  patriotism  which  can  be  taken  seri- 
ously is  concerned  that  I  do  not  believe  any  one  will  venture  to 
assert  the  contrary. 

But  this  being  so,  then  the  noblest  love  of  country,  after  all, 
merely  amounts  to  setting  too  high  a  value  on  the  form  in 
comparison  with  the  contents.  This  is  the  commonest  mis- 
take that  half-educated  people  make,  they  being  fundamentally 
incapable  of  distinguishing  inward  reality  from  outward 
show.  With  patriotism,  in  short,  as  with  religion  and  science, 
it  is  the  same  thing:  if  allowed  to  go  too  far,  it  becomes  a 
dogmatic  commonplace. 

When  a  man  has  once  realized,  however,  that  all  patriotism 
which  can  be  taken  seriously  must  to  a  certain  extent  in- 
evitably do  away  with  patriotism,  or  at  any  rate  .set  a  limit 
to  its  growth,  then,  despite  all  instinctive  enthusiasm,  he  may 
perhaps  set  about  inquiring  more  closely  into  what  patriot- 
ism is  really  based  upon. 

We  want  to  be  just  to  patriotism.  It  is  not  the  "greatest 
thing  in  the  world,"  neither  is  it  such  an  altogether  bad 
thing  as  extreme  Internationalists  endeavor  to  make  it  out. 
Just  because  they  did  so  represent  it,  however,  they  failed  to 
carry  with  them  the  sane-minded  mass  of  the  people,  or  even 
to  make  them  see  how  much  there  is  wrong  and  unjustifiable  in 
so-called  "modern  patriotism."  There  is,  in  short,  no  uncon- 
ditional patriotism,  for  it,  too,  depends  on  circumstances,  and 
cannot  be  judged  aright  save  by  taking  these  into  account. 

Patriotism  is  three-rooted  in  three  sentiments  Two  of 
them,  a  man's  love  of  his  native  land  and  family  love,  are 
hereditary  instincts,  which  we  can  all  easily  understand  and 
which  are  probably  common  to  us  all,  because  of  our  common 
past.  But  the  third  root  reaches  out  into  the  future:  it  is 
man 's  social  longing,  his  desire  to  join  with  other  men  to  form 


254  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

large  associations.  Now,  as  no  two  persons  view  the  future 
alike,  it  is  here  that  patriotism  divides,  and  here  that  the  good 
parts  company  with  the  bad. 

2. — OUR  LOVE  FOR  OUR  NATIVE  LAND 

§  89. — An  Animal's  Love  for  His  Native  Surroundings,  and 
a  Human  Being's  Love  of  Them.  Attachment  to  Surround- 
ings Indicates  Suitahiltiy  for  Them. 

Our  love  for  our  native  land  is  an  inheritance,  originally 
transmitted  to  us  by  animals.  The  less  an  organism  is 
adapted  to  the  general  conditions  of  the  world  and  the  more 
it  is  suited  to  the  special  conditions  of  its  own  surroundings, 
the  more  deeply  rooted  may  it  be  said  to  be  in  its  native  land. 
In  this  respect  the  history  of  evolution  shows  ups  and  downs. 
The  lowest  forms  of  life,  for  instance,  many  bacteria  even 
now,  need  only  certain  omnipresent  conditions  such  as  air, 
light,  water,  and  some  few  food-stuffs  which  occur  everywhere 
in  order  to  exist.  Thus,  being  cosmopolitan,  they  do  not  need 
to  be  limited  to  a  native  element. 

Gradually,  however,  every  creature  becomes  more  and  more 
closely  adapted  to  peculiar  conditions.  The  fish  must  swim  in 
water,  and  the  trout,  if  it  is  to  thrive,  even  requires  spring 
water;  the  monkey  can  live  only  in  warm  woods,  and  the 
orang-outang,  indeed,  only  in  the  primeval  tropical  forests  of 
the  East  Indian  archipelago ;  birds  need  air,  but  the  condor 
needs  certain  special  conditions  besides,  which  he  can  find  in 
the  Andes  alone.  This  increasing  adaptation  to  a  specific  cli- 
mate and  this  growing  disinclination  to  depart  from  a  certain 
area,  which  may  be  compared  with  growing  attachment  to  our 
native  land,  are  interrupted  when  the  youthful  human  race 
makes  its  first  tool. 

This  is  not  the  place  to  show  how  man  used  his  tools  to 
acquire  freedom  in  every  respect.  I  shall  content  myself 
with  pointing  out  the  obvious  fact  that  the  use  of  tools  abol- 
jshes  the  natural  compulsion  exerted  by  love  of  country,  since 


WHEREIN  PATRIOTISM  IS  ROOTED  255 

with  the  aid  of  tools  (using  this  word  in  the  broadest  sense) 
man  learns  to  adapt  himself  to  the  most  varied  conditions. 
Unlike  the  countless  tools  of  animals  which  have  grown  to  be 
part  of  them,  such  as  beaks,  teeth,  prehensile  tails,  probosces, 
burrowing  feet,  etc.,  human  tools  can  be  laid  aside  or 
changed  at  any  moment.  With  his  clothing  of  various  thick- 
nesses man  can  live  in  the  tropics  and  at  the  north  pole, 
whereas  an  animal  has  either  a  bare  skin  or  a  thick  coat. 

The  tiger  must  fall  upon  his  prey,  and  consequently  in- 
habit a  district  where  prey  abounds;  for  his  claws  are  part 
of  himself.  Tlie  mole  must  dig,  and  consequently  creep  into 
the  earth,  being  unable  to  lay  aside  his  burrowing  foot.  The 
horse  must  be  a  fleet  animal,  and  therefore  cannot  quit  the 
steppes ;  for  he  cannot  put  his  hoof  to  any  purpose  except  run- 
ning. Man,  however,  can  exchange  his  sword  for  a  plowshare, 
and  be  both  farmer  and  warrior  at  once.  By  making  a  tool  of 
the  horse,  and  hoisting  himself  on  to  his  back,  he  can  even 
appropriate  his  swiftness;  and  he  can  actually  intensify  this 
speed  by  building  railways  and  steamers,  airships,  and  motor- 
cars.    Thus  he  is  able  to  live  everywhere. 

Owing  to  man's  free  intellect,  therefore,  the  foremost  person 
is  no  longer  he  who  is  best  adapted  to  certain  surroundings, 
but  he  who  has  most  unlimited  control  over  the  outer  world. 
I\Ian's  attachment  to  his  native  soil,  therefore,  is  a  relic  of  the 
animal  in  him,  and  originated  in  the  savage  s  dread  of  the 
unknown.  No  one,  moreover,  who  has  endeavored  to  judge 
human  nature  impartially  can  have  failed  to  observe  that  love 
of  country  is  in  the  case  of  most  of  us  a  romantic  senti- 
ment, strongly  tinctured  with  the  influence  of  Chateaubriand 
and  the  many  others  who  have  invented  modern  love  of  nature 
for  us.  We  love  German  forests  not  merely  for  their  own 
Scd\e,  but  because  from  Diircr  to  Leistikow  thousands  have 
painted  them;  because,  from  Walter  von  der  Vogelweide  to 
Eichendorff,  thousands  have  sung  their  praises;  because 
Tieck  coined  the  phrase  lonely  as  the  woods:  because  there 
the  German  oak  grows  and  the  German  lime-tree,  too.     In 


256  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

short,  we  love  the  forests  not  only  for  their  own  sake,  but  be- 
cause they  have  come  to  be  a  symbol  to  us. 

Honest  love  of  country,  however,  is  wholly  dili'erent.  It  is 
a  genuine  necessity,  and  is  greatest  among  backward  peoples, 
who  have  really  grown  up  part  and  parcel  of  their  native  land. 
Once  forcibly  transplanted  therefrom,  they  can  never  settle 
down  properly  anywhere  else.  Who  are  the  people  in 
Europe  most  famous  for  their  attachment  to  their  native  soil 
before  ever  modern  affectation^  had  insisted  on  every  one's 
worshiping  the  art  of  his  own  country?  The}^  are  first  and 
foremost  the  Swiss  mountain  peasants,  who  could  not  live 
without  their  mountains  and  cows ;  the  fishermen  of  the  Volga, 
to  whom  Mother  Volga  means  the  world ;  and  the  Icelanders, 
who  prefer  their  stern  native  land  to  all  the  luxury'  of  central 
Europe.  All  these  folk  have  remained  comparatively  primi- 
tive, and  the  lower  we  descend  the  scale  of  ethnology,  the 
stronger  we  shall  find  this  unconquerable  attachment  to  the 
ways  and  customs  of  the  mother-country. 

Surprise  has  often  been  felt  that  the  sons  of  primitive 
peoples^  Indians  and  Maoris,  for  instance,  whom  supposed 
good  fortune  has  transferred  to  comfortable  European  sur- 
roundings, could  yet  never  be  at  home  there;  in  fact,  that 
even  many  civilized  savages,  who  had  apparently  become  quite 
inured  to  European  ways,  having  even  completed  their  courses 
as  university  students  with  distinction,  should  yet  have  taken 
the  first  opportunity  to  go  back  to  the  bush  and  become  naked 
savages  again.  But  there  is  nothing  surprising  in  this,  for 
their  primitive  brains  are  simply  incapable  of  feeling  at  home 
in  such  complex  new  conditions.  Hence  there  are  absolutely 
natural  reasons  why  they  should  be  attached  to  their  native 
soil  in  a  way  which  to  us  at  first  seems  incomprehensible. 

1  "Snobhismus"  is  the  word  used,  but  all  students  of  modern  French 
will  perceive  that  Nicolai  means  what  the  French  call  "'snobisme" 
rather  than  what  we  call  "snobbishness."  There  is,  so  far  as  I  know,  no 
exact  English  translation  of  "snohisme"  but  it  is,  I  think,  nearer 
"affectation"  than  snobbishness. — Translator. 


WHEREIN  PATRI0T1S:\I  IS  ROOTED  257 

§  90. — Overcoming  our  Love  of  Our  Native  Soil. 

If  I  mistake  not,  it  was  Maeaulay  who  first  pointed  out  that 
although  love  of  a  man 's  native  soil  and  patriotism  were  identi- 
cal in  small  communities,  such  as  the  Greek  republics,  the 
Swiss  cantons,  and  the  German  imperial  cities,  for  here  the 
narrow  confines  of  "home"  really  represented  a  definite  con- 
ception, yet  in  the  larger  communities  of  to-day  this  is  no 
longer  so  in  the  least.  As  RatzeP  truly  says:  "Meantime, 
the  German's  associations  are  only  with  his  country  or  bit  of 
country.  In  the  case  of  the  Old  Bavarian,  however,  this 
country  does  not  extend  to  Franconia.  and  in  the  case  of  the 
Prussian  not  necessarily  west  of  the  Elbe."  On  the  other 
hand,  the  dweller  in  the  low-lying  plains  of  North  Germany 
finds  what  is  to  him  a  more  kindred  homelike  land  in  the 
Asiatic  lowlands  as  far  as  the  Yenisei  than  in  all  southern 
Germany. 

The  natural  mother-land  of  the  South  German,  on  the 
contrary,  extends  far  beyond  Germany  southward  and  west- 
ward ;  indeed,  the  dweller  in  the  low-lying  plains  of  the  upper 
Rhine  would  more  easily  feel  at  home  in  Lombardy  than  on 
the  Liineburg  Heath. 

Thus  a  man's  natural  attachment  to  his  native  soil  must  of 
necessity  tend  toward  narrowness,  and  really  it  is  just  the 
highly,  far-seeing  nations  who  have  grown  beyond  this  innate 
love  of  their  native  soil ;  for  they  have  learned  not  to  dread  the 
unknown  and  to  have  open  eyes  and  ears  for  appreciating 
beauty  throughout  the  world.  The  educated  Greeks  of  a  later 
day  were  at  home  everywhere  in  the  then  known  world ;  the 
Romans,  again,  were  more  attached  to  Greece  than  to  their 
own  country.  Indeed,  they  not  infrequently  called  them- 
selves barbarians;  and  Tacitus  and  others  even  discovered  per- 
petual beauties  in  the  misty  land  of  Germania.    From  time 

1  "Deiitscliland.  Einfiihrung  in  die  HeimatkuTide"  ("CJertnany.  An 
introduction  to  the  Knowledge  of  our  own  Country),  by  Friedrich  Rat- 
zel,  p   312.     Leipsic,  1898. 


258  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

immemorial  we  Germans  have  had  an  uncontrollable  long- 
ing for  the  South,  and  it  is  just  the  "most  highly  civilized" 
nation  on  earth  which  is  freest  from  this  kind  of  love  of 
countiy,  for  the  proud  Briton  knows  that  in  a  sense  he  is 
able  to  take  his  country  round  the  world  with  him.  lie  has 
conquered  the  world  just  because  he  hui>ts  elks  in  Scandi- 
navia, tracks  bears  in  Russia,  shoots  tigers  in  India  and  Uons 
in  Africa,  always  like  an  Englishman,  lie  has  conquered 
the  world,  in  short,  just  because  "Home,  sweet  home"  for  him 
is  no  longer  anything  but  a  romantic  idyll. ^ 

Thus  this  primitive  root  of  patriotism,  love  of  our  native  soil, 
or  native  heath  or  native  steppes,  has  in  process  of  time  ceased 
to  be  of  any  value  as  a  factor  in  evolution.  Even  Gottfried 
Keller,^  whom  assuredly  no  one  would  accuse  of  want  of  at- 
tachment to  his  mountains  and  to  ever^^thing  German,  recog- 
nized that  modern  patriotism  was  becoming  a  clog  upon  the 
minds  of  men. 

Volkstum  und  Sprache  sind  das  Jugendland, 
Darin  die  Volker  waclisen  und  gedeihen. 
Das  Mutterhaus,  nach  dem  sie  selmend  sclireien, 
Wenn  sie  verscblagen  sind  auf  frenulen  Strand, 
Doch  maenhmal  warden  sie  zum  Giingelband, 
Sogar  zur  Kette  um  den  Hals  der  Freien ; 
Dann  treiben  Langstern'acbsene  Spielereien 
Genarrt  von  der  TjTannen  sehlauer  Hand. 
Hier  trenne  sieh  der  lang  vereinte  Strom! 
Versiegend  scbwinde  der  im  alten  Staube, 
Der  andere  breche  sich  ein  neues  Bette! 
Denn  einen  Pontifex  nur  fasst  der  Dom, 
Das  ist  die  Freilieit,  der  polit'scbe  Glaube, 
Der  lost  und  bindet  jede  Seelenkette ! 

1  Dr.  Nicolai,  like  every  one  else,  is  entitled  to  liis  own  opinion.  His 
writing  affords  much  more  proof  of  knowledge  of  liiology  than  of 
knowledge  of  English  character,  his  notions  of  Avhich  seem  to  be 
purely  theoretical. — Translator. 

2  "Nationalitat,"  in  Gottfried  Keller's  "Collected  Poems."  1889. 
Wilhelm  Herz:   Berlin. 


I 


I 


WHEREIN  PATRI0TIS:\1  IS  ROOTED  259 

§  91. — The  Organic  Famihj  Instinct.  Xoviudic  Tribe  or 
Family? 

The  primitive  tribes  which  human  beings  united  to  form  in 
olden  times  owe  their  origin  partly  to  the  human  tribal 
instinct  and  partly  to  the  family  instinct.  Neither  were  ever 
wholly  separate,  nor  are  they  now.  The  family  instinct 
gradually  widened  until  it  became  a  racial  instinct,  if  it  be 
allowable  to  speak  of  a  race  all  of  whose  members  spring  from 
a  common  stock.  The  tribal  instinct  simply  compelled  a  fairly 
large  number  of  human  beings  to  club  together  to  form  warlike 
nomadic  tribes,  and  therefore  has  really  nothing  to  do  with 
their  having  sprung  from  a  common  stock.  It  merely  indi- 
cates that  human  beings  feel  more  at  ease  with  a  number  of 
their  fellows  than  alone. 

Originally  the  family  instinct  was  confined  to  maternal  af- 
fection, which,  with  the  impulse  to  feed,  is  perhaps  the  oldest 
instinct  known  to  us.  But  whereas  feedinfj;  is  purely  selfish, 
maternal  affection  is  the  most  primeval  impulse  which  is  not 
devoid  of  "altruism"  and  which  has  nevertheless  not  ceased 
to  be  selfish ;  for  although  the  child  is  already  another  being, 
yet  the  mother  feels  it  to  be  something  belonging  to  her  own 
self.  Not  till  maternal  affection  expanded  into  family  af- 
fection and  finally  into  universal  fraternal  affection  did  the 
altruism  in  it  become  manifest.  The  original  nature  of  the 
sentiment,  however,  remained  unchanged.  Once  more  we  see 
that  in  nature  there  is  no  beginning,  and  even  what  seems  to  be 
new  and  wholly  unlike  anything  in  the  past  is  in  realit}"  only 
a  development  of  the  old.  It  was  long  believed,  indeed,  that 
maternal  affection  was  solely  due  to  the  mother's  feeling  a 
child  is  flesh  of  her  flesh  and  bone  of  her  bone.  But  something 
similar  to  maternal  affection  can  be  proved  to  have  existed 
even  before  any  question  of  sentiment  can  have  arisen,  since 
the  parents  did  not  as  yet  know  their  own  offspring,  indeed 
often  never  saw  them. 

In  common  parlance,   it  is  true,  we  no  longer  speak  of 


260  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

maternal  affection  or  even  of  maternal  instincts,  bnt  of 
"natnre's  maternal  forethought."  For  this  Autenrieth  intro- 
duced the  fine  and  appropriate  name  of  "organic  instinct,"  by 
which  he  virtually  means  that  as  a  matter  of  fact  in  creatures 
on  so  low  a  level  no  modification  takes  place  in  the  rest  of 
the  organism.  There  are  countless  instances  of  such  organic 
maternal  instincts.  The  fact  that  the  more  offspring  an  ani- 
mal produces,  the  smaller  and  more  helpless  these  offspring  are 
must  not  be  forgotten,  for  the  only  object  in  these  vast  num- 
bers being  born  is  that,  despite  all  persecution,  some  may 
still  survive.  The  creation  of  pectoral  glands  which  secrete 
suitable  nourishinent,  of  birds'  crops  for  the  purpose  of  pre- 
digestion  and  of  pouches  for  carrj'ing  young,  are  all  facts 
proving  how  mother  love  has  triumphed. 

Then  comes  a  series  of  facts  which  may,  indeed,  be  connected 
with  instincts,  but  which  are  also  wholly  and  solely  attributable 
to  mother  love,  although  at  first  sight  they  seem  to  have  noth- 
ing to  do  with  it.  Among  these  facts  are  rutting  periods, 
which  are  always  so  timed  that  the  young  are  not  born  in 
tlie  cold  of  winter,  but  when  young,  juicy  plants  or  young, 
easily  digestible  animals  are  to  be  found. 

Countless  instincts  of  insects  serve  similar  purposes.  When 
laying  their  eggs,  many  insects  seem  to  exercise  almost  incredi- 
ble foresight,  so  that  the  future  larvae  may  be  able  to  creep 
forth  in  suitable  conditions;  and  yet  no  such  insect  has  ever 
survived  the  birth  of  its  offspring.  In  the  case  of  the  higher 
animals,  particularly  birds  and  mammals,  such  compelling 
instincts  constantly  tend  to  become  freer,  that  is,  to  depend 
more  and  more  on  the  intelligence.  As  their  brain  constantly 
increases  in  activity  it  must  learn  to  think  for  the  offspring; 
and  if  this  is  to  be  the  case,  some  feeling  must  necessarily 
exist.     Such  a  feeling  is  mother  love. 

§  92. — The  Change  in  Racial  Instincts 

Thus  mother  love,  like  most  of  our  sublimest  sentiments,  can 
be  traced  backward  through  the  animal  kingdom  to  the  time 


WHEREIN  PATRIOTIS.A[  IS  ROOTED  261 

when  it  was  still  an  organic  instinct ;  that  is,  a  purely  animal 
quality.  This  in  nowise  detracts  from  the  value  of  such 
a  sentiment,  but  once  we  perceive  that,  after  all,  it 
merely  represents  the  equivalent  of  former  physical  quali- 
ties already  partly  extinct,  we  shall  cease  to  be  con- 
vinced there  and  then  that  such  sentiments  are  eternally 
valuable.  To  offend  against  them,  therefore,  becomes  no  worse 
than  inflicting  bodily  injury;  and  M'e  realize  that  in  certain 
circumstances  even  maternal  love  may  have  to  yield  to  some- 
thing higher.  If  mankind  in  general  should  one  day  care 
for  all  chiklren,  as  is  not  beyond  the  bounds  of  possibility, 
because  it  has  realized  that  this  would  be  a  good  thing,  then 
maternal  affection  would  be  nothing  but  a  rudimentary  in- 
stinct, perhaps  even  in  the  way,  just  as  the  appendix,  once  use- 
ful, is  now  useless,  and  merely  a  cause  of  disease. 

If,  liowever,  this  applies  to  maternal  affection,  how  much 
more  does  it  apply  to  its  derivative  family  affection  and,  above 
all,  to  racial  affection!  Both  family  and  racial  affection  are 
of  very  mixed  origin.  Thoroughlj^  human  and  occasionally 
anything  but  desirable  elements  are  intermingled  with  both. 
The  reason  why  maternal  affection  could  expand  into  family 
affection  was  that  not  only  did  the  mother  love  her  child,  but 
the  man  his  descendants.  ^Modern  research  long  since  ascer- 
tained that  monogamous  marriage  is  no  natural  institution. 
I\lan  is  by  nature  polygamous  and  philoneistic.  Originally 
promiscuity  prevailed  between  all  men  and  women  belonging 
to  migratory  tribes,  just  as  all  animals  living  in  herds  are 
polygamous,  and  only  a  few  creatures  living  alone — a  num- 
ber of  birds,  for  instance — are  monogamous.  We  now  know 
with  absolute  certainty  that  everywhere  the  monogamic  period 
succeeded  the  so-called  matriarchate  period  only  after  the  Avife 
had  become  the  slave  of  the  husband,  who  regarded  her  as  a 
valuable  domestic  animal  and  wished  to  make  sure  of  his  right 
to  own  her,  as  if  she  had  been  a  cow  or  a  sheep.  At  the  same 
time  that  the  woman  was  enslaved  and  taken  possession  of  by 
the  husband,  private  ownership  of  other  property  began  to 


262  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

come  in.  To  inherit  this  legitimately  the  husband  then  de- 
sired to  found  a  "legitimate"  family  within  certain  well- 
detined  limits.  The  sacredness  of  the  family,  therefore,  is 
really  based  merely  on  the  sacredness  of  private  property ;  and 
the  very  nations  that  to-day  set  most  store  by  the  possession 
of  material  property  (the  Jews,  for  example),  are  those  who 
still  consider  the  family  most  sacred.  The  sources  of  family 
affection,  therefore,  have  at  all  times  been  not  only  the  pure 
well-springs  of  mother  affection,  but  also  the  turbid  waters  of 
slavery  and  property  ownership. 

As  for  racial  affection,  it  is,  after  all,  nothing  but  expanded 
family  love.  We  love  human  beings  whom  we  believe  to  be 
descended  from  the  same  ancestors  as  ourselves,  and  whom  we 
therefore  suppose  to  belong  to  the  same  great  family.  Thus 
we  see  that  even  the  second  source  of  patriotism  consists  of 
troubled  waters,  and  how  foul  they  often  are  we  shall  realize 
more  clearly  in  analyzing  race  patriotism    (§  99). 

3. — THE   SOCIAL   ASPIRATIONS   OF    MANKIND 

§  93. — The  Explanation  of  Public-Spiritedness 

An  association  of  human  beings  seems  to  us  more  important 
than  an  individual  man,  and  by  general  consensus  of  opinion 
the  origin  of  associations  is  put  at  a  later  date  than  that  of 
human  beings.  Some  thought  sex  accounted  for  the  formation 
of  associations.  A  human  being,  it  was  said,  founded  a  fam- 
il}^  branches  of  this  family  then  arose,  and  these  formed  into 
villages  and  towns  and  afterward  into  states.  Others  saw  the 
explanation  in  civilization,  arguing  that  certain  occupations, 
such  as  agriculture,  or,  as  Schiller  says,  Ceres,  caused  man  to 
associate  with  his  fellow-man. 

As  was  shown  in  discussing  man's  original  tendency  to 
herd  together,  and  as  anthropologists  long  ago  proved,  these 
views  do  not  really  go  to  the  root  of  the  matter.  It  was  not 
man  who  founded  society,  hut  society,  which  was  his  primary 
state,  was  the  collectivity  which  first  produced  the  individual 


WHEREIN  PATRIOTISM  IS  ROOTED  263 

man.  In  other  words,  society  is  older  than  man,  and  man's 
ancestors  lived  in  herds  when  they  were  still  in  an  animal 
state.  Man,  therefore,  always  has  been  of  Aristotle's  Zoon 
politikon — the  social  animal.  The  universal  brotherhood  of 
man  and  humanitarian  ideas  generally  are  in  no  sense  ab- 
stract notions,  but  the  most  solid  facts.  Thus  wiiat  we  have 
to  explain  is  not  how  bloodthirsty  animals  became  peace-loving 
human  beings,  but,  contrariwise,  how  it  happened  that  man, 
the  social  animal,  should  have  become  warlike. 

But  deeply  rooted  and  at  all  times  innate  as  is  this  humani- 
tarian instinct  of  man's,  yet  it  must  everlastingly  be  strug- 
gling against  the  no  less  inborn  instinct  of  egoism.  We  are 
iiiwardly  cast  in  human  form,  and  the  instrument  for  using 
our  humanity  to  the  uttermost  is  at  hand,  only  we  human 
beings  do  not  yet  know  how  to  play  upon  it.  Hitherto  the 
pure  sound  of  this  music  of  harmony  to  come  has  never  been 
heard  on  earth;  only  the  favored  few  heard  the  soft  strains 
of  the  future  and  delighted  therein. 

Mankind's  social  aspirations,  therefore,  are  beckoning  to  him 
to  advance  toward  an  ideal  which  is  not  something  vague  and 
unknown,  enveloped  in  the  mists  of  ages  to  come,  but  some- 
thing which  we  can  already  see  as  clear  as  daylight  before  us,  if 
only  with  the  mind 's  eye. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

Different  Species  of  Patriotism 

1. — local  patriotism 
§  94. — Natural  Patriotism 

German  patriotism,  like  every  other,  is  something  large 
and  complex,  containing  very  many  almost  indefinable  ele- 
ments. There  is,  first,  attachment  to  our  native  tongue,  in 
whose  accents  we  first  learned  to  make  our  wants  known, 
which  first  made  us  feel  intelligent  beings,  and  in  whose 
accents  we  first  learned  about  goodness,  truth,  and  beauty 
in  our  childhood's  years,  when  we  were  still  sensitive  to  beauty 
and  goodness.  This  attachment  includes  others — attachment 
to  all  the  kind  people  whom  we  knew  when  we  were  children, 
and  who  were  almost  all  Germans;  to  all  the  great  men  who 
first  aroused  our  enthusiasm,  Goethe,  Kant,  Beethoven,  and 
mauy  hundreds  of  others;  to  much  that  is  beautiful;  to  our 
forests  and  lakes,  our  old  churches  and  ballads.  We  are  not 
always  aware  of  this,  but  so  it  is,  and  the  patriotism  of  those 
very  persons  who  are  now  declaring  that  it  is  unpatriotic  to 
like  the  Lorelei  song  because  Heinrich  Heine  wrote  it  is 
partly  based  on  this  oft-sung  song.  Then  there  is  also  the 
recollection  of  many  things  endeared  to  us  merely  bj'  trivial 
custom,  and  not  simply  such  things  as  German  beer  and 
German  jollity.  A  great  deal  else  besides  for  which  other 
nations  envy  us — for  instance,  German  thoroughness  and  love 
of  order.  German  music  and  German  humor — cannot  be  under- 
stood or  judged  aright  save  by  those  born  just  on  the  little 
spot  between  the  Rhine  and  the  Memel ;  while  Silesian  and 
Bavarian  dumplings  help  to  develop  another  and  more  special 

264 


DIFFERENT  SPECIES  OF  PATRIOTISM        265 

local  attachment.  German  forests  and.  Strasburg  cathedral, 
the  Colmar  Crucifixion  and  the  North  German  steppes  are 
all  integral  parts  of  our  German  patriotism. 

French  patriotism  is  altogether  different.  In  it  traces  of  the 
Renaissance  survive,  and  of  the  great  Revolution,  of  Bur- 
giuidy  and  champagne,  of  the  marvelous  delicacy  of  a  Corot 
and  the  Gallic  wit  of  a  Voltaire.  The  Napoleonic  legend 
also  intervenes,  the  cupola  of  the  dome  of  Les  Invalides 
glows  in  the  setting  sun,  and  the  Provenc^-al  troubadour  sings 
freely  of  the  "Donna  franca  et  cortezza/'  and  extols  the 
*'gesta  del  per  francos,"  the  divine  deeds  of  the  Franks. 

The  solid  basis  for  these  human  aspirations  will  be  dis- 
cussed in  Chapter  XIII  on  "The  World  as  an  Organism."  It 
is  enough  to  point  out  here  that  mankind  can  never  be  com- 
pletely in  harmony  unless  all  human  beings  feel  as  brethren 
and  comrades.  Thus  man's  primeval  impulse  to  look  forward 
is  not  only  the  root  of  all  patriotism,  but  also  the  crowning 
point  of  all  genuine,  true,  and  eternal  love  of  country. 

§  95. — True  and  False  Patriotism 

True  and  false  patriotism  here  part  company,  and  do  so  of 
their  own  accord.  Wherever  local  patriotism,  however  local 
it  may  be,  tends  to  make  humanity  more  human,  or,  if  the 
phrase  be  preferred,  to  promote  patriotism  of  the  human  race, 
it  is  justified;  but  wherever  it  tends  to  hinder  this  one  great 
aim  of  man,  it  is  reprehensible. 

This  idea  is  part  and  parcel  of  mankind.  It  was  not  real- 
ized all  at  once,  however,  for  first  the  egoism  of  the  individual 
man  had  to  be  overcome,  and  for  this  it  was  necessary  for  men 
to  unite  together.  Municipal  patriotism  was  justified  in  over- 
coming the  selfish  designs  of  the  robber  barons.  The  concep- 
tion of  a  state  triumphed  when  it  imd  to  be  applied  to  whole 
civilizations,  such  as  modern  national  governments.  Hence 
no  one  will  ever  succeed  in  undoing  what  has  been  done  once 
and  for  all  by  fhe  struggles  of  the  nineteenth  century,  in  which 
men  patriotically  joined  together,  thereby  insuring  the  victory 


266  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

of  national  patriotism.  National  states  now  exist,  needing 
only  to  be  perhaps  slightly  improved.  Hence  national  patriot- 
ism would  ]iot  now  be  justitied  save  in  a  few  oppressed  terri- 
tories. 

New  problems  are  now  awaiting  us,  only  we  are  attempting 
to  solve  them  by  the  same  methods  as  answered  in  the  case  of 
the  old  problems.  Patriotism  is  no  longer  a  springboard  for 
man  in  his  endeavors  to  take  heaven  by  storm,  for  its 
aims  are  no  longer  progressive,  but  retrogressive.  The  pa- 
triotisms involved  in  the  present  conflict  bring  us  no  nearer 
the  final  patriotism  of  mankind  ;  there  is  no  genuine  patriotism 
about  them. 

What  of  England  and  English  patriotism?  it  may  be  asked. 
Newton  and  Faraday,  Cromwell  and  Shakspere,  the  Habeas 
Corpus  Act,  the  World's  First  Parliament,  Scottish  ballads, 
whisk}',  British  soldiers  in  the  desert,  Trafalgar  and  Aboukir 
Bay,  a  world-wide  empire,  and  plum  pudding — all  these 
create  a  feeling  against  which  no  Britisher  could  ever  be  quite 
proof.  And  this  is  as  it  should  be,  for  this  absolutely  natural 
attachment  to  those  who  were  young  with  us  to  the  place  of 
our  birth  and  the  habits  with  which  we  grew  up  needs  no  ex- 
planation, and  is  nowise  disrespectful  to  any  other  place,  any 
other  human  being,  or  any  other  habits. 

As  every  man  loves  and  ought  to  love  his  wife,,  albeit  he 
knows  that  other  women  are  perhaps  more  beautiful,  wiser, 
and  better,  even  so  every  human  being  not  only  may,  but 
ought  to,  love  his  own  country.  Only  he  must  not  forget  that 
this  is  a  matter  of  personal  predilection,  and  that  other  men 
are  just  as  much  entitled  to  have  predilection  for  another 
country. 

Above  all  we  must  reflect  that  patriotism  is  not  a  simple,  un- 
varying sentiment,  but  is  variable  and  composite.  Certain 
elements,  such  as  attachment  to  our  mother-tongue,  are  almost 
inA'ariably  present,  but  apart  from  this  we  must  realize  the 
fact  of  a  glow  of  pleasure  and  satisfaction  coming  over  us  all 
at  the  sound  of  our  native  country's  name  has  many  and 


DIFFERENT  SPECIES  OF  PATRIOTISM        267 

complex  causes.  The  sources  of  the  sentiment  of  "home," 
although  in  general  traceable  to  the  three  cardinal  causes  I 
have  set  forth  above,  vary  immensely  in  the  case  of  each  in- 
dividual person.  Every  one  fixes  upon  what  seems  to  him 
most  essential,  and  makes  his  patriotism  symbolical  thereof. 
In  this  universal  form  the  sentiment  of  home  is  one  of  the 
sacred  mysteries  of  mankind — a  priceless  possession,  like  art 
and  beauty. 

2. — DYNASTIC   OWNERSHIP 

§  96, — The  Affection  of  Sithjects 

Such  vague  love  of  our  homeland,  however,  is  not  of  much 
practical  value.  It  is  only  in  ballads  that  kings  talk  as 
Henry  did  to  Douglas: 

Der  ist  in  tiefster  SeeJe  treu, 
Der  die  Heiuiat  lieht,  wic  Du! 

They  generally  demand  an  outspoken  attachment  to  one 
well-defined  fatherland.  By  old  Roman  law  the  father  was 
he  whose  name  was  mentioned  in  the  marriage  contract  {Pater 
est  quern  nuptiax  demonstrant) .  Similarly,  whatever  country 
is  to  be  accounted  a  man's  fatherland  or  his  mother-country 
must  have  the  proper  colors  flying  over  it.  Countless  elements 
go  to  make  up  patriotism,  yet  here  we  have  the  least  important 
selected  as  its  distinctive  characteristic. 

Almost  everywhere  in  Europe  for  about  a  thousand  j'ears 
we  have  known  none  but  railed-off  countries  on  a  dynastic 
basis.  Thus,  owing  to  unconscious  association  of  ideas,  at- 
tachment to  the  hereditary  ruling  house  has  become  almost 
the  same  thing  as  patriotism ;  and  modern  Prussia,  where  this 
dynastic  patriotism  is  most  strongly  marked,  was  (|uite  right 
in  substituting  the  motto  "With  God  for  king  and  country" 
for  the  old  motto  "pro  patria  et  gloria,"  thus  placing  king 
before  count rv\ 

This  time-honored  fidelity  to  a  dynast}^  really  meant  some- 


268  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

thing  so  long  as  a  prince  represented  or  symbolized  a  com- 
nninity  not  dependent  on  him  for  its  existence,  as  was  formerly 
the  case  with  the  Teutonic  dukes,  and  is  still  so  vvitli  the 
English  King.  But  when  princes  began  making  considerable 
territorial  and  tribal  acquisitions  by  conquest,  purchase,  or 
marriage,  then  genuine  love  of  country  and  dj'nastic  patriot- 
ism excluded  each  other,  and  there  were  not  a  few  who  realized 
this.  What  had  attachment  to  the  Bourbons  to  do  with  the 
Spaniards',  Neapolitans',  or  Sicilians'  attachment  to  their 
country?  How  could  Burgundy,  Spain,  and  the  Nether- 
lands be  attaclied  to  the  House  of  Austria,  which  for  them 
was  represented  by  the  insignificant  house  of  Hapsburg,  of 
Swiss  origin?  Or  what  has  the  patriotism  of  the  Poles,  Alsa- 
tians and  Danes  to  do  with  attachment  to  the  Pmsso-German 
Empire  of  the  Hohenzollerns  ? 

The  bonds  uniting  a  nation  together,  however,  are  so  vague 
and  indefinite,  and  the  state  with  its  ruler  and  the  often  very 
beneficial  array  of  officials  representing  it,  are  something  so 
impressively  real,  that  as  time  went  on,  attachment  to  the  state 
everywhere  supplanted  patriotism.  Indeed,  historv-  proves 
the  awakening  of  patriotic  sentiments  to  have  always  been  con- 
nected with  attachment  to  some  particular  ruler. 

In  the  eighteenth  century  what  we  now  call  patriotism  was 
still  unknown,  but  the  Roi  Soleil  was  looked  on  as  the  glory  of 
France,  and  Frederick  II  as  foreshadowing  Germany's  great- 
ness ;  Maria  Theresa  was  loved  as  representing  the  new  unity 
of  the  Austro-Hungarian  monarchy,  and  even  now  the 
Russian  peasant  would  have  no  conception  of  Russia  Avere  it 
not  for  the  influence  of  the  Orthodox  Clmrch  and  the  idea 
of  the  czar  as  the  Little  Father.  This  state  of  things  con- 
tinued till  the  great  Revolution,  after  which  the  "subject" 
gradually  became  more  important  as  compared  with  his  ruler. 
Consequently,  at  any  rate  in  advanced  countries,  the  concep- 
tion of  nationhood  and  of  a  national  state  became  more  and 
more  vivid  and  clear.  IMeanwhile  the  irresistible  historical 
tendency  of  the  nineteenth  century  to  unite  Europeans  into 


DIFFERENT  SPECIES  OF  PATRIOTISM        269 

national  states  became  increasing:ly  manifest.  Yet  the  con- 
ception of  nationhood  remained  only  a  sentiment,  and  no  at- 
tempt was  made  to  define  it  more  exactly'. 

^  97, — Prusso-German  and  Austro-German 

Pure  and  unadulterated  medievalism  is  still  not  defunct, 
and  in  Cermany.  to  go  no  further,  it  is  obvious  that  even  in 
the  nineteenth  century  the  dynastic  principle  can  win  the 
day.  After  the  upheavals  of  Napoleon's  time  there  were  in 
Germany  two  powerful  dynasties,  the  Hohenzollerns  and  the 
Ilapsburgs.  Behind  both  lay  a  long  and  glorious  past.  The 
influence  of  French  conceptions  of  liberty  gave  rise  to  dreams 
of  welding  all  territory  "so  far  as  the  German  tongue  is 
heard"  into  one  great  nation;  but  this  could  be  done  only  if 
one  of  the  two  dynasties  were  abolished.  Traditional  ideas, 
however,  got  the  better  of  modern  ones,  sanguinary  wars 
set  the  seal  upon  dismemberment.  The  old  German  Empire 
was  turned  into  the  country  of  the  Hapsburgs,  and  beside  it 
the  youthful  Prussia  grew  up  into  the  new  and  vigorous  Ger- 
man Empire  of  the  Hohenzollerns.  Neither  country  repre- 
sents any  distinctly  defined  nation.  The  German  Empire, 
however,  aproaches  thereto,  inasmuch  as,  according  to  German 
statistics,  it  contains  only  nine  per  cent,  of  non-Germans 
(Poles,  Frenchmen,  and  Danes).  On  the  other  hand,  a  large 
number  of  Germans  live  abroad,  particularly  in  the  Austro- 
Ilungarian  monarchy,  where,  however,  they  are  greatly  in 
the  minority.  Indeed,  they  number  only  about  twenty  per 
cent,  of  the  total  population  as  compared  with  the  Poles,  Slavs, 
Magyars,  and  Ronuince  nations.  Rut  in  German  territory 
the  dynastic  idea  has  so  completely  prevailed  over  the  national 
that  instead  of  condemning  Bismarck  as  the  "disrupter" 
of  Germany,  we  extol  him  as  its  "nniter."  Yet  he  it  was 
who.  in  the  interests  of  Prussia,  his  smaller  fatherland,  really 
brought  about  the  present  state  of  things. 

If  we  would  see  Germany  a  great  power  on  a  national  basis, 
then  first  of  all  we  should  have  to  liberate  the  millions  of 


270  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

Germans  who,  as  becomes  daily  more  apparent,  are  gradu- 
ally perishing  in  that  chaos  of  nations  called  the  Hapsburg 
monarchy.  That  is,  matters  being  as  they  are,  the  ancient 
dream  of  German  unity  cannot  be  realized  save  by  Austria  be- 
ing broken  up  and  the  German  Empire  annexing  what  is  really 
German  property. 

Fanciful  dynastic  notions,  however,  are  so  closely  inter- 
woven with  our  national  conceptions  that  we  do  not  even 
perceive  what  a  violent  contradiction  in  terms  it  is  that,  at 
any  rate  according  to  the  official  explanation  following  on 
the  ultimatum  to  Serbia,  we  should  have  taken  up  arms  in 
1914,  full  of  enthusiasm  and  with  flying  colors,  for  the  support 
of  our  Austrian  ally.  Imagining  that  she  was  drawing  her 
sword  for  the  so-called  national  unity  of  Teutonism,  Germany 
really  drew  it  in  the  interests  of  Austria,  which  is  composed 
of  more  than  a  dozen  nations,  and  is  an  outrage  on  the  very 
notion  of  race  purity. 

In  reality  the  existence  of  Austria  is  the  sole  obstacle  to  the 
constitution  of  a  German  nation  wherever  the  German  tongue 
is  heard.  The  German,  therefore,  as  is  so  often  the  case, 
stands  in  his  own  light  by  maintaining  the  Austrian  dynasty. 
But  apart  from  these  facts,  the  ine\itable  result  of  this  alliance 
between  the  protagonists  of  dynastic  and  those  of  national 
patriotism  is  that  neither  honestly  believes  his  own  kind  of 
patriotism  to  be  the  wisest  possible.  Nor  can  any  one  seri- 
ously believe  in  the  ultimate  possibility  of  these  two  divergent 
kinds  of  patriotism  being  fused  into  one,  for  the  very  existence 
of  Austria  makes  it  impossible  for  Germany  to  develop  into 
a  single  united  nation. 

Hence  we  are  confronted  with  two  alternatives.  Either 
Germany  has  once  and  for  all  abandoned  the  idea  of  becoming 
a  single  united  nation,  or  else  she  went  to  war  intending  after- 
w^ard  to  attack  and  dismember  her  present  ally.^ 

1  If  such  an  intention  exists  at  all,  it  can  only  be  latent  in  the  sub- 
consciousness of  the  nation  Naturally  I  have  no  thought  of  even 
referring  to  any  "mala  fides." 


DIFFERENT  SPECIES  OF  PATRIOTISM        271 

The  inward  signification  of  this  war  is  the  conquest  of  pa- 
triotism. As  has  so  often  been  the  case,  Germany  is  fighting 
against  her  own  self,  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  in  course 
of  time  the  small  Germanies  will  disappear  and  their  place 
be  taken  by  one  great  united  mother-country.  So  long 
as  the  small  dynasties  exist,  however,  attachment  to  the  newer 
and  greater  country  will  be  considered  treason  to  them.  The 
patriot  Jahn,^  Georg  Herwegh,  Freiligrath,  Fritz  Renter,  and 
many  others  besides  were  forced  into  exile  or  imprisoned  be- 
cause of  their  love  for  Germany.  And  even  now  everj^  one 
who  hopes  for  a  united  German  mother-country  is  outlawed 
by  Prussia  and  Austria,  to  the  applause  of  the  senseless 
mob. 

The  very  men  who  talk  about  Germany's  world-wide  expan- 
sion dread  her  becoming  united,  and  urge  all  manner  of 
reasons  why  she  should  not  do  so.  The  adjunction  of  Austria 
would  mean  too  many  clericals  in  the  Reichstag :  the  break  up 
of  Austria  must  mean  that  many  alien  nationalities  would 
break  away,  and  then  Germany  would  be  too  weak  from  the 
military  point  of  view.  German  territory  as  a  whole  is  incon- 
venient from  the  point  of  view  of  trade,  and  so  forth.  All 
this  may  be  true;  but  if  so,  then  it  simply  proves  that  Ger- 
man national  sentiment  is  a  mere  phrase,  adopted  whenever 
it  is  desired  to  pick  holes  in  the  Jews,  Social  Democrats, 
Poles,  or  French,  but  immediately  thrown  overboard  if  it 
threatens  to  become  applicable  to  ourselves.  Let  us  be  frank. 
Let  no  one  say  he  is  a  German  to  the  core,  but  rather  that  he 
is  a  Prussian  and  a  lloheuzoUeru  to  the  core. 

If  modern  patriots  talked  in  this  wise  and  were  not  always 
confusing  everything  with  their  wrong  notions  of  mition- 
ality,  it  would  be  possible  to  come  to  some  sort  of  understand- 
ing with  them,  and  readily  to  admit  that  for  a  nation  to  be  in 
a  .sort  of  water-tight  compartment  is  no  longer  the  one  thing 
worth  striving  for,  but  that  beyond  all  doubt  the  conception 

1  P"riedrich  Ludwig  Jahn,  known  as  the  "  Turnvater,"  father  of  gym- 
nasties. 


272  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

of  the  state  as  the  only  true  form  of  association  is  daily  becom- 
ing more  important. 

§  98. — The  Free  Associatmi  of  States 

The  association  to  form  a  state  is  a  strong  and  essentially 
valuable  bond  of  union,  and  wherever  it  has  been  based  upon 
liberty  it  has  proved  even  stronger  than  any  nationality  or,  as 
they  are  now  so  often  called,  racial  bounds,  stronger  even  than 
the  ties  of  religion. 

In  Switzerland  Germans,  French,  Romansch,  and  Italians 
have  united  to  form  one  free  state.  Every  one  being  entitled 
to  his  own  language,  religion,  and  convictions,  attachment 
to  these  is  not  lashed  up  to  such  a  pitch  as  to  supplant  loj^alty 
to  the  state.  Moreover,  the  conception  of  the  state  imposes 
no  fetters,  but  merely  serves  a  useful  purpose.  ]\Iodest  in  its 
demands  the  state  acquires  solid  power. 

Similarly  in  the  United  States  there  dwell  a  medley  of 
associated  nations,  Germans  and  Russians,  Poles  and  Magyars, 
Italians  and  Englishmen,  Irish  and  Balkan  subjects,  all  living 
peacefully  together  and  beginning  to  unite  together  to  form 
a  new  race.  In  this  case  a  medlej^  of  nations  is  strong  and 
can  maintain  itself,  whereas  in  Austria,  held  together  as  she 
is  by  force,  it  spells  disaster.  Furthermore,  a  new  patriotism, 
American  patriotism,  is  being  formed,  for,  like  everything  else, 
patriotism  cannot  exist  unless  it  be  based  on  moral  sentiment; 
in  other  words,  on  free  will  and  free  determination. 

The  British  Empire,  of  which  the  conquered  Boers  have 
become  absolutely  loyal  citizens  in  an  incredibly  short  time, 
likewise  seems  to  be  standing  the  test.  The  Boers,  after  all, 
remain  Boers.  Not  a  word  is  said  about  the  necessity  of 
everything  in  the  British  Empire  being  English ;  it  is  recog- 
nized that  the  empire  is  merely  a  bond  of  union. 

Both  the  German  and  Austrian  empires  also  exist  merely 
for  a  purpose,  but  we  make  the  mistake  of  endeavoring  to  de- 
lude ourselves  and  others  into  believing  that  the  German  Em- 
pire is  a  national  state,  which  of  course  annoys  a  great  many 


DIFFERENT  SPECIES  OF  PATRIOTISM        273 

over  whom  the  black,  white,  and  red  banner  floats,  since  they 
neither  can  nor  will  become  Germans  by  nationality,  but  would 
undoubtedly  be  excellent  members  of  a  German  union. 

Whenever  an  empire  puts  forth  no  extravagant  claims,  such 
as  to  be  a  sort  of  center  to  which  enforced  sympathies  must 
gravitate,  then  it  is  far  easier  to  see  how  far  it  can  help  to  cen- 
tralize material  interests.  Unfortunately,  however,  every  one 
who  disapproves  of  certain  institutions,  especially  those  to 
which  the  rulers  for  the  time  being  attach  importance,  is 
called  an  enemy  of  the  empire ;  and  thus  every  one  who  really 
thinks  for  himself  is  tempted  to  regret  being  a  member  of  that 
empire.  All  great  imperial  conceptions,  indeed,  originated 
with  the  opposition  parties.  Germany  now  prides  herself 
upon  her  social  legislation,  and  indeed  we  owe  it  to  applied 
state  socialism  that  our  economic  life  goes  on  smooth!}^  even 
during  the  war.  But  time  was  when  Liberals  and  Socialists 
alike  were  the  country's  enemies.  The  opposition  will  not  and 
cannot  demand  that  its  advice  should  be  followed,  for  then 
it  would  cease  to  deserve  its  name;  but  it  is  justified  in  in- 
sisting on  being  heard  and  on  its  opinions,  like  every  one 
else's,  being  respected. 

To-day  there  are  also  some  whose  views  of  the  war  differ 
from  those  of  the  majority,  and  who  believe  that  it  would 
not  be  for  Germany's  good  to  win  a  victory.  It  is  of  course 
their  duty  to  do  whatever  work  their  fellow-citizens  in  the 
majority  demand  of  them ;  but  equally  of  course  they  are  en- 
titled, indeed,  the}'-  are  bound,  to  remain  true  to  their  convic- 
tions. In  1850  King  Frederick  William  IV  actually  said  to 
the  British  envoy  that  he  considered  it  the  greatest  blessing 
that  a  victory  of  Prussia  over  Austria  had  then  been  avoided, 
for,  he  added,  in  view  of  Austria's  internal  dissensions  this 
would  have  been  inevitable.  Similarly  every  citizen  of  the 
country  should  now  be  allowed  to  say  what  he  considers  most 
in  the  interests  of  its  greatness.  Patriotism,  in  short,  should 
be  a  moral  sentiment,  and  this  is  possible  only  in  a  state  of 
freedom 


274  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

3. — RACE  PATRIOTISM 

§  99.— The  Problem  of  Raae 

Tlie  obstacle  to  us  Europeans  developing  this  free  patriot- 
ism at  present  is  the  so-called  race  patriotism  of  the  small 
European  countries.  This  has  become  far  too  petty  for  mod- 
ern world  politics,  and,  after  all,  it  has  nothing  whatever  to  do 
with  race.  Now,  this  question  of  race  is  one  of  the  mast  melan- 
choly chapters  in  the  history  of  human  knowledge.  Con- 
sciously or  unconsciously,  knowledge,  supposed  to  be  impartial, 
has  never  placed  itself  so  unconditionally  in  the  service  of  am- 
bitious and  self-seeking  politicians  as  in  this  race  question. 
Indeed,  it  might  almost  be  said  that  the  various  theories  of 
race  have  really  never  been  put  forward  except  with  the  object 
of  advancing  some  claim  or  other.  The  writings  of  Houston 
Stewart  Chamberlain,  an  Anglo-German,  afford  perhaps  the 
most  distressing  example  of  this. 

As  we  all  know,  this  author  has  been  endeavoring  to  claim 
every  eminent  man  throughout  the  history  of  the  world,  Christ 
and  Dante  included,  for  the  Teutonic  race.  It  may  seem  sur- 
prising that  other  demagogic  representatives  of  other  races 
did  not  make  a  similar  attempt,  and  that  they  did  not  is  a 
testimony  to  the  good  sense  of  foreign  men  of  science.  The 
French  anthropologist,  Paul  Souday,  on  the  other  hand,  re- 
cently endeavored  to  prove  that  probably  all  Germany's 
eminent  men  are  of  Celtic  origin  ;  and  as  a  matter  of  fact  South 
Germany,  to  which  most  of  them  belong,  was  originally  a 
Celtic  country,  while  the  foreign  origin  of  some  of  the  few 
eminent  North  Germans  can  be  proved.  Thus  Nietzsche  Avas 
a  Slav,  and  Kant's  family  emigrated  from  Scotland.  It  is 
worth  while  to  refer  to  a  French  edition  of  Houston  Stewart 
Chamberlain  such  as  Paul  Souday,  for  it  may  perhaps  make 
even  deluded  neutrals  realize  the  worthlessness  of  such  argu- 
ments. But  most  Germans  hold  some  such  views  as  this. 
True,  they  say  that  they  feel  as  German  patriots  ought  to 


DIFFERENT  SPECIES  OF  PATRIOTISM        275 

feel,  just  because  they  are  Germans;  but  in  reality  they  be- 
lieve in  a  German  race  because  they  think  it  their  patriotic 
duty  to  do  so.  Now,  if  we  consider  the  foundations  on  which 
these  race  theories  are  based,  we  shall  see  that  they  are  very 
slender.  They  are,  first,  that  in  general  it  is  not  proved  that 
a  pure  race  is  superior  to  a  mixed  one,  and,  secondly,  that  it  is 
impossible  exactly  to  define  what  a  human  race  is. 

§  100.— The  Value  of  Face  Purity 

A  pedigree  dog  is  said  to  be  worth  more  than  a  mongrel, 
and  this  probably  explains  the  strange  view  that  a  human 
being  of  pure  race  is  worth  more  than  one  of  mixed  race. 
In  the  case  of  dogs,  and  to  a  less  extent  in  that  of  other 
domestic  animals,  this  can  be  understood;  for  man  originally 
selected  for  breeding  such  dogs  as  he  liked  or  as  were  useful 
to  him.  Thus  he  bred  a  small,  long-bodied  race,  with  crooked 
legs  suited  for  scratching  holes  in  the  ground,  a  dog  spirited, 
strong,  and  rapacious,  the  Dachshund,  which  he  used  for  hunt- 
ing animals  living  in  holes  or  caves.  Then  he  bred  another 
kind,  tall  and  slender,  with  long  legs,  the  greyhound,  to  hunt 
hares  for  him ;  and  similarly  he  has  bred  vigilant  Pomeranians, 
sharp-nosed  setters,  bloodhounds,  and  so  on  till  we  come  to 
life-saving  St.  Bernards. 

Now,  each  of  these  kinds  has  its  own  peculiar  qualities,  and 
in  other  respects  its  capacities  have  become  quite  deadened. 
Thus  the  greyhound  cannot  smell,  and  bulldogs  are  inclined 
to  bite.  In  short,  a  biologist  would  say  that  these  pure-bred 
dogs  were  by  no  means  particularly  well  equipped  for  life; 
but  man  will  have  them  so,  and  therefore  he  attaches  less 
value  to  cross  breeds,  in  which  the  special  characteristics  of 
particular  kinds  of  dogs  of  course  vanish.  The  proof  that, 
from  the  purely  biological  point  of  view,  pedigree  dogs  are 
inferior  is  simply  that  the  most  highly  bred  usually  die  out 
before  long.  Thus  St.  Bernards  survived  only  for  four  gener- 
ations, and  there  are  no  longer  any  absolutely  pure-bred 
pug-dogs;  but  to  atone  for  this,  new  pedigree  kinds  are  con- 


276  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

stantly  appearing.  It  is  certainlj^  remarkable  that  police 
dogs,  which  from  the  nature  of  their  employment  must  be 
highly  trained,  are  not  called  "pedigree  dogs."  Such  dogs, 
in  short,  are  useless  except  for  some  special  purpose,  and  as 
only  dogs  are  used  for  so  many  purposes  quite  foreign  to  their 
nature,  it  is  chiefly  in  their  case  that  purity  of  race  is  greatly 
insisted  upon. 

In  the  case  of  all  other  domestic  animals,  whether  horses, 
cows,  goats,  pigs,  or  what  not,  skilful  crossing,  or  what  breed- 
ers call  improving  the  breed,  is  considered  of  more  importance 
than  anything  else;  and  whenever  a  particular  breed  is  bred 
comparatively  true,  new  blood  must  be  from  time  to  time  in- 
troduced into  it.  The  sole  exceptions  to  this  rule  are  race- 
horses, which  are  kept  for  sport  only,  and  a  few  fancy  breeds 
of  pigeons;  but  for  work  none  but  half-blood  horses  can  be 
used.  German  horse-breeders,  moreover,  have  had  to  pay 
dearly  for  having  acted  on  the  suggestion  of  Bruce  Low,  and 
for  a  time  bought  none  but  pedigree  horses.  It  must  not  be 
forgotten  also  that  the  strain  of  English  pure-blood  pedi- 
gree horses  has  not  been  known  for  more  than  two  hundred 
years  at  the  outside,  and  therefore  is  still  comparatively 
young. 

Thus  in  the  animal  kingdom  we  find  scarcely  any  warrant 
for  the  assertion  that  people  of  unmixed  race  are  superior  to 
others,  and  in  mankind  no  warrant  whatever  for  it,  since  there 
are  absolutely  no  pure-bred  races,  with  the  possible  exception 
of  a  few  peoples  on  a  very  low  level.  Europe,  at  all  events, 
is  an  absolute  national  medlej'-,  and  any  one  who  does  not 
consider  the  Jews  the  flower  of  the  human  race  should  not 
make  such  foolish  assertions  as  that  concerning  the  superior- 
ity of  unmixed  races. 

Suppose  now  that  it  is  asserted  that  although  nations  owed 
their  origin  to  crossing,  yet  in  course  of  time  a  uniform  race  is 
formed  from  these  crossings,  and  that  these  ancient  races  are 
superior  to  more  recent  conglomerate  races.  Even  this 
would  not  be  true.     On  the  contrary,  it  is  a  remarkable  fact 


DIFFERENT  SPECIES  OF  PATRIOTISM        277 

that  the  legends  of  all  peoples  which  have  attained  greatness 
tell  of  their  having  entered  their  countries  as  conquerors. 
Doubtless  this  is  a  reminiscence  of  another  fact  of  which  his- 
tory affords  repeated  confirmation — that  powerful  nations 
which  leave  their  impress  on  the  world  always  arise  just  where 
two  national  migrations  came  into  collision,  and  a  new  young 
empire  resulted.  This  is  also  true  of  the  ancient  empires 
of  the  East.  l>ut — not  to  depart  from  Europe — Hellas  and 
Rome  arose  out  of  that  great  migration  which  we  describe  as 
the  Doric  migration  and  the  Greek  colonization  of  the  Mediter- 
ranean. The  Roman  Empire  was,  moreover,  very  closely  con- 
nected with  the  Etruscan  migrations.^  Again,  the  German 
medieval  empire  took  its  rise  from  the  onslaughts  of  popular 
migration.  It  was  Arab  invasions  which,  in  Spain  (and 
therefore  in  a  foreign  land)  gave  rise  to  that  Arab  empire 
which  was  in  every  respect  the  most  important ;  and  subse- 
quently the  Spanish  Empire  arose.  The  Norman  invasions  of 
France  and  England  in  the  tenth  century  gave  the  impetus  to 
the  greatness  of  both  these  countries.  Prussia  arose  precisely 
where  there  was  the  greatest  blending  of  Teutons,  advancing 
from  the  tenth  to  the  twelfth  centuries  over  the  Eastern 
marches,  with  the  conquered  Slavs. 

Quite  possibly  everything  must  not  be  set  down  to  mixture 
of  blood,  but  something  to  dorm.ant  energies  being  aroused. 
The  foregoing  brief  historical  summary,  however,  suthces  to 
disprove  older  races  having  in  any  way  the  advantage. 
Those  who  urge  that  all  these  instances  are  taken  from  an- 
cient history,  may  be  referred  to  the  unexampled  progress  of 
the  United  States.  Here  we  see  actually  before  us  the  rise 
of  a  young,  vigorous  nation  composed  of  the  leavings  of  old 
Europe,  sometimes  inferior  leavings,  with  a  dash  of  negro  and 
Indian  blood,  which,  though  slight,  nevertheless  cannot  be  ig- 
nored. Here  is  a  nation  which  might  well  be  called  New  Eu- 
rope.    Now  many,  it  is  true,  will  say  that,  though  America 

1  Mommsen's  opinion  differed  radically  from  tiiis,  but  will  not  stand 
the  test  of  modern  research. 


278  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

has  progressed,  she  has  not  done  so  in  the  right  way;  but 
probably  such  things  have  always  been  said  by  those  over 
whom  the  wheel  of  blooming  civilizations  has  passed. 

§  101. — Historical  and  Linguistic  Races 

It  is  by  no  means  too  much  to  say,  therefore,  that  there  is 
nothing  to  prove  the  superiority  of  a  pure  human  race  over 
a  mixed  one,  and  that  this  is  not  even  probable. 

Now,  as  regards  the  differentiation  of  the  various  races, 
the  unfortunate  thing  is  that  we  have  no  absolute  criterion 
for  the  definition  of  a  race.  All  manner  of  expedients  have 
therefore  been  resorted  to.  Thus  an  attempt  has  been  made 
by  historical  investigators  to  separate  human  beings  into  com- 
munities having  a  like  origin  or  into  groups  speaking  cognate 
languages,  and  to  classify  them  according  to  various  similari- 
ties or  differences  of  civilization ;  and  finally  an  endeavor 
has  been  made  to  base  a  definition  of  race  on  physical  char- 
acteristics. There  is  some  justification  for  all  these  attempts, 
and  all  appear  to  be  successful  so  long  as  we  confine  ourselves 
to  the  one  special  line  of  investigation.  But  unfortunately 
these  diversely  formed  national  groups  do  not  coincide. 

There  are  peoples,  whose  existence  is  historicall}^  attested, 
such  as  the  Teutons  of  the  migratory  period,  whose  descen- 
dants might  be  sought  in  Italy,  Africa,  Spain,  and  Byzantium. 
Again,  there  are  linguistically  allied  races,  for  instance,  the 
'"Germans,"  to  which  not  only  Teutons,  Slavs,  and  Celts,  but 
even  negroes  and  Mongols  belong.  Finally,  there  are  anthro- 
pological races,  for  instance,  the  long-headed  North  European 
type,  who  chiefly  live  around  the  Baltic  and  the  North  Sea 
(except  Pomerania,  West  Prussia,  and  Finland). 

Now,  as  nobody  knows  what  is  really  the  proper  method  of 
classifying  races,  every  one  can  select  whichever  best  suits  his 
own  particular  inclinations ;  and  what  is  worse,  and  what  has 
led  to  hopeless  confusion,  is  that  every  one  who  has  pegged  out 
a  "nation"  in  accordance  with  one  set  of  characteristics  only 
tries  to  make  all  other  characteristics  conform  thereto      Thus 


DIFFERENT  SPECIES  OF  PATRIOTISM        279 

some  persons  have  attempted  to  find  the  same  specific  charac- 
teristics prevailing  over  the  whole  territory  formerly  subject 
to  the  inroads  of  national  migrations,  while  others  have  tried 
to  prove  all  German-speaking  or  all  Slav-language  territory 
to  be  inhabited  by  one  single  race,  and  even  to  consider  the 
Jews  or  the  Teutons  as  all  belonging  to  one  type  of  civilization 
only.  All  these  attempts  show  but  too  plainly  the  cloven  foot 
of  partiality. 

Historical  research  in  particular  has  been  misapplied,  and 
extravagant  claims  made  in  its  name.  The  Italian  believes  in 
an  Italian  people  extending  as  far  as  the  sound  of  Roman  leg- 
ionaries' footsteps  were  once  heard,  or,  as  they  prefer  to  put 
it  now,  as  far  as  the  Lion  of  St.  Mark's  once  roared.  The  Ger- 
mans would  fain  claim  for  themselves  all  territory  over  which 
the  hosts  of  the  migratory  period  once  passed.  The  French 
Napoleonic  Empire  alone  is  still  historically  too  young  to  have 
any  traditional  justification  for  its  claims.  These  need  not  be 
expected  for  a  few  centuries  to  come;  that  is,  unless  in  the 
interval  the  world  becomes  wiser. 

Now,  as  regards  the  question  of  race,  historical  research 
may  be  left  absolutely  out  of  account.  Suppose  that  in  a 
territory  inhabited  by  millions  of  people  only  one  single  person 
of  foreign  race  has  survived  or  immigrated.  Now,  if  this 
solitary'  person  has  characteristics  such  as  are  invariably  trans- 
mitted in  case  of  his  crossing  with  another  race,  then,  owing 
to  continuous  crossing,  in  a  few  hundred  years  the  entire 
population  would  possess  these  characteristics. 

In  order  to  realize  this,  we  must  consider  that,  allowing  four 
children  to  a  generation,  a  single  human  being  has  in  the  fifth 
generation — that  is,  after  125  years — one  thousand  descen- 
dants ;  ^  after  250  years  this  number  has  increased  to  a  million, 
and  after  375  years  the  number  of  his  descendants  would 
equal  that  of  all  living  human  beings.^     The  historical  fact 

1  After  2.5  years,  4:  after  50  years,  16;  after  75  years,  64;  after  100 
years,  256;  after  125  years.  1024  descendants 

2  In  the  case  of  pliysioally  viworoua  national  elements  it  is  scarcely 
too   much   to   allow   four   children.     But   allowing   only   3    children,   a 


280  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

that  at  any  given  time  a  nation  was  racially  pure  and  has  not 
since  received  any  considerable  infusion  of  foreign  blood  is 
therefore  of  comparatively  small  importance. 

Linguistic  researches  have  likewise  led  to  no  definite  results, 
for  we  know  that  it  may  happen  that  nations,  almost  to  a  man, 
adopt  a  new  language  in  a  short  time.  Thus  the  Slavs  in  the 
East  Elbe  provinces  almost  all  speak  German  well,  and,  it 
might  be  added,  feel  quite  Gennan.  The  Bulgarians,  origin- 
ally a  blend  of  Turk  and  Tatar,  have  become  so  much  im- 
pregnated with  Slav  civilization  and  the  Slav  language  as  to 
forget  all  about  their  origin;  while  Slavs  who  have  emigrated 
to  Greece  have  become  just  like  Greeks.  The  Goths  in  Spain 
and  Lombardy  likewise  soon  absolutely  forgot  their  Teutonic 
origin.  Any  number  of  like  instances  could  be  adduced. 
]\Ioreover,  all  other  civilized  institutions  can  be  shown  to  have 
altered  even  more  rapidly  than  language. 

§  102. — Physical  Racial  Characteristics 

The  physical  characteristics  of  animals  are  studied  almost 
solely  with  the  object  of  classifying  them  into  species.  In 
the  case  of  man  it  is  also  the  only  method  of  attaining  any 
practical  results,  and  it  has  proved  a  reliable  method  of 
dividing  the  great  human  races  into  white  and  black,  yellow 
and  red.  In  the  demarcation  of  the  small  European  sub-spe- 
cies frequently  described  as  races  it  has,  on  the  whole,  not  an- 
swered, and  for  the  following  reasons : 

1. — These  peoples  probably  never  were  genuine  species. 
They  had  not  time  to  develop  so  much  because  they  did  not 
split  off  from  the  so-called  Indo-Germanic  race  until  a  com- 
paratively late  period. 

2. — A  great  hindrance  to  investigation  is  that  it  is  not  known 
whether  the  original  inhabitants  of  Europe,  the  race  whom 
the  immigrants  encountered,  were  homogeneous  or  not.     This 

billion  is  reached  in  If)  generations  (475  years).  Allowing  2  children 
it  would  he  readied  in  30  generations,  or  750  years;  that  is,  not  even 
then  in  such  a  very  long  time. 


DIFFERENT  SPECIES  OF  PATRIOTISM        281 

point,  however,  will  be  gradually  cleared  up  when  we  become 
better  acquainted  with  prehistoric  discoveries. 

3_ — Most  important  of  all  is  the  fact  that,  in  historic  times, 
there  has  been  so  much  crossing  and  recrossing  that  no  one 
need  expect  to  find  more  than  the  ruins  of  any  particular 
nation  anywhere.  Rome's  legions  penetrated  as  far  as  the 
Pontus,  to  Ultima  Thule,  and  Heaven  knows  where  besides; 
and  what  is  more,  they  founded  numerous  colonies,  to  which 
the  altogether  Roman  names  of  Rhenish  cities  and  the  Roman 
cast  of  countenance  frequently  noticeable  in  Rhineland  girls 
afford  eloquent  testimony. 

Again,  before  the  migrations,  some  inexplicable  impulse  to- 
ward expansion  drove  Cimbrian  migratory  tribes  far  south- 
ward. Then  came  the  period  when  the  Teutons  as  Roman 
mercenaries  encircled  the  known  world,  until  finally  they  be- 
came independent  nations,  and  as  such  took  part  in  the 
migrations  which  overwhelmed  all  Europe.  These  migra- 
tions have  not  yet  ceased,  especially  in  eastern  central  Europe, 
between  the  fifteenth  and  thirteenth  parallel  of  longitude, 
that  is,  in  the  Balkan  regions  and  in  the  quadrangle  erected 
upon  them,  including  the  corners  of  Stettin,  Triest,  Petro- 
grad,  and  Constantinople.  The  Courland  and  Siebenbiirgen 
Germans  in  Slav  and  Rumanian  territory,  the  Sezkler  JMagyars 
in  Rumanian  territory,  and  the  Wends  and  Czechs  in  German 
territory  may  be  cited  in  proof  of  what  I  say. 

But  war  and  peace  brought  about  many  changes  besides 
these.  All  the  nations  of  Europe  and  the  surrounding  ter- 
ritory, JMongols,  Moors,  Finns,  and  Magyars  included,  fought 
battles,  particularly  in  Germany.  Frequently,  however,  espe- 
cially in  the  case  of  Spaniards,  Frenchmen,  Swedes,  and  Poles, 
troops  were  garrisoned  in  Germany,  often  for  a  long  time,  or 
else  German  and  Swiss  mercenaries  were  garrisoned  all  about 
the  world,  leaving  descendants  behind  them,  sometimes  forci- 
bly begotten,  sometimes  not. 

Besides  this,  religious  and  commercial  persecution  caused 
people  to  emigrate  to  freer  or  more  enlightened  countries. 


282  THE  BIOLOGY  OP  WAR 

The  refugees  in  Ansbach  and  Brandenburg,  the  Palatinate 
and  Holland,  and  the  Salzburg  people  in  East  Prussia,  Den- 
mark, and  Sweden  are  instances  of  religious  colonization ;  the 
Italians  in  Germany  and  the  Poles  in  the  Rhine  country  and 
Westphalia,  of  commercial  colonization. 

Besides  the  historical  difficulties  of  sorting  out  the  different 
races,  there  is  another  dilficulty,  this  time  biological.  For 
example,  the  examination  of  skulls  is  in  itself  an  absolutely 
reliable  method  of  race  classification,  except  that  we  do  not 
know  whether  the  characteristics  of  skulls,  like  other  physical 
peculiarities,  are  variable,  and  if  so,  why  they  vary.  Thus  if 
by  means  of  skulls  found  and  statistics  it  is  easy  to  prove  that 
in  Germany  the  round-headed  (or  brunette)  type  is  grad- 
ually increasing,  or  if  in  America  a  certain  Indian  type  has 
lately  somewhat  frequently  occurred  among  the  whites,  we 
still  do  not  know,  or  at  any  rate  we  cannot  ascertain  from 
skulls,  why  this  is  so.  Is  it  because  a  certain  portion  of  the 
population,  originally  in  the  minority,  but  possessed  of  char- 
acteristics which  are  always  transmissible,  is  gradually  forc- 
ing its  way  to  the  front  ?  Has  it  to  do  with  the  signs  of  adap- 
tation to  certain  outward  conditions  at  present  unknown  to  us  ? 
Or  is  the  increase  due  to  unsuspected  immigration  ? 

In  the  face  of  these  difficulties  it  might  justly  be  said  that, 
were  ethnology  to  demonstrate  the  racial  purity  of  the  people, 
this  would  be  convincing  proof  of  its  worthlessness.  In  real- 
ity, however,  recent  investigations  have  made  an  end  of  all 
such  racial  purity.  Whereas  most  nations  used  to  pride  them- 
selves on  being  of  racially  pure  origin,  tracing  their  descent 
usually  to  a  god  or  demigod,  or  at  any  rate  to  some  famous 
hero,  to-day  it  is  probably  only  the  Russians  and  Germans  who 
passionately  lay  claim  to  racial  purity.  Or,  rather,  it  is 
claimed  by  a  limited  part  of  both  these  nations,  and  one  taken 
far  too  seriously  by  both, — the  Panslavists  and  Pan-German- 
ists  and  their  scientific  protagonists. 

As  for  the  Russians,  they,  like  the  Scandinavians,  have  re- 
mained fairly  isolated  in  their  Eastern  seclusion ;  and  it  is  a 


DIFFERENT  SPECIES  OF  PATRIOTISM        283 

fact  that  in  Scandinavia  the  north  European  type  (the  Teu- 
tons) and  in  Russia  the  East  European  type  have  remained 
purest. 

§  103. — The  Mixture  of  Races  in  Germany 

To  claim  race  purity  for  Germany,  where  all  European  types 
come  in  contact  with  one  another  as  in  a  melting-pot,  is  ab- 
solutely preposterous.  Perhaps  she  owes  her  cosmopolitan  ca- 
pacity for  understanding  '*the  voices  of  the  nations"  better 
than  do  other  nations  to  this  very  circumstance  that  in  her 
the  descendants  of  all  European  nations  live.  At  any  rate, 
there  is  more  justification  for  such  a  contention  than  for 
asserting  that  every  racial  conglomeration — what  Houston 
Stewart  Chamberlain  would  call  a  chaos  of  nations — must  nec- 
essarily be  inferior. 

It  matters  not,  however,  whether  the  results  of  this  mix- 
ture of  races  be  good  or  bad.  We  have  to  put  up  with  it, 
since  there  is  no  doubt  about  the  fact.  But  as  Chamberlain's 
bulky  volume  is  very  much  read  in  Germany,  and  as  this  un- 
justifiable race  pride  is  one  of  the  worst  evils  of  modern  Ger- 
many, I  do  not  wish  to  pass  it  over  in  absolute  silence.  More- 
over, its  false,  but  seductive,  reasoning  is  or  appears  to  aim  at 
proving  that  the  Teutonic  race  is  a  pure  race. 

All  race  theorists  assume  that  among  mensurable  physical 
attributes  the  most  important  ethnologically  are  the  formation 
of  the  skull,  the  color  of  the  hair  and  skin,  and  the  dimensions 
of  the  body.  Now,  the  German  anthropologist  Deniker,*  bas- 
ing his  conclusions  on  principal,  external  attributes,  has  at- 
tempted to  explain  the  present  race  distribution  in  Europe  by 
the  measurements  of  school-children  and  recruits,  of  which  in 
some  eases  there  are  a  great  many.  He  assumes  the  existence 
of  ten  races  altogether,  including  six  main  races;  and  shows 
how  they  are  distributed  quite  indiscriminately,  without  re- 
gard to  language  or  frontier  delimitation,   over  the  whole 

1  "Bulletin  de  la  Soci^t^  d'Anthropologie  de  PariB."  Tome  VIII,  4me 
S^rie,  pp,  189  and  291. 


284  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

European  coutiiient.  Certain  races,  however,  seem  chiefly  to 
be  found  in  districts  bordering  on  the  sea.  Thus  the  Teutons 
mainly  live  around  the  Baltic  and  the  Irish  Sea. 

The  results  of  these  investigations,  which  may  be  found 
in  a  valuable  work  by  the  German  anthropologist  Hirt,  are  of 
interest  to  all  European  nations.  I  shall  refer  to  them,  how- 
ever, only  in  so  far  as  tliey  relate  to  Germany,  and  then  only 
so  far  as  the  district  within  the  boundaries  of  the  present 
German  Empire  is  concerned.  As  for  the  complete  racial  mix- 
ture of  Austria,  no  one  would  probably  question  this.  The 
map  on  the  opposite  page  gives  an  approximate  idea  of  con- 
ditions as  the}''  actually  are.  The  colored  portions  represent 
districts  w'here  one  of  the  ten  European  races  to  some  extent 
preponderates;  the  white  portions  indicate  territory  where 
there  is  a  heterogeneous  mixture  of  races.  [Diagram  between 
pp.  242  and  243.] 

This  diagram  can  be  comparatively  easily  brought  into  line 
with  ascertained  historical  facts.  The  ancient  Teutons  (red) 
were  settled  about  the  Baltic,  whence  they  advanced  into  other 
countries.  In  so  doing  they  encountered  Celts  (yellow)  in 
South  Germany,  and  Slavs  (blue)  toward  the  southeast.  As 
for  the  Slavs,  who  still  predominate  greatlj'  in  Posen  and 
Silesia,  they  have  also  occasionally  made  considerable  ad- 
vances, particularly  toward  the  sea.  It  is  easy  to  understand 
this  advance  seaward,  and  it  accounts  for  the  fact  that  in 
Pomerania  and  Westphalia  the  Teutonic  elements  have  now 
no  longer  the  upper  hand,  as  they  had  originally.  The  Teu- 
tons mostly  passed  through  South  Germany,  and  then  before 
long  utterly  perished  in  the  far  South,  which  was  obviously 
unsuited  to  them.  Consequently  the  Celtic  race  has  remained 
comparatively  pure  in  Baden  and  Wiirtemberg  (South  Ger- 
many), while  elsewhere  it  is  apparent  that  there  has  been  an 
immigration  of  the  Adriatic  races  (green)  as  a  result  of  Ro- 
man rule  and  of  the  round-headed  "homo  alpinus."  Ap- 
parently the  Romans  found  the  kind  of  life  here  to  their 
tatjte.     JMost  of  central  Germany,  however,  is  peopled  by  a 


DIFFERENT  SPECIES  OF  PATRIOTISM        285 

mixture  of  races,  or,  as  Houston  Stewart  Chamberlain  neatly 
phrases  it,  by  a  national  chaos.  \Yilser  ^  bears  out  this  fact 
when  he  says,  "Scarcely  one  in  a  hundred  of  our  fellow- 
countrymen  to-day  has  a  type  of  skull  or  framework  like  the 
skeletons  found  in  the  rows  of  graves  of  the  migration  pe- 
riod." Elsewhere  he  says,  "If  to-day  we  would  discover 
true  Teutons,  we  must  go  to  our  Northern  sister  nations — to 
Sweden,  the  Netherlands,  and  England." 

§  ]04. — Germans  and  Teutons 

We  call  German  those  common  characteristics  and  traits 
which  have  arisen  out  of  this  mixture  of  races  by  reason  of  a 
common  language  and  civilization.  "We  call  Teutonic  those 
original  and  primary  qualities  which  were  inherent  in  a  peo- 
ple of  unknown  origin.  This  people  is  to-day  so  intermingled 
with  other  peoples  that,  at  least  in  Germany,  it  no  longer 
exists. 

Germany  consequently  is  a  civilized  state  built  up  on  the 
basis  of  a  common  speech.  It  is  not  a  natioual  state  ^  built 
up  on  a  common  race.  The  identification  of  Germans  with 
Teutons  is  entirely  misleading.  It  is  true  that  this  new  com- 
plex of  peoples  has  taken  its  most  important  formative  element, 
its  language,  essentially  from  its  Teutonic  element.  The  Ger- 
man is  therefore  justified  in  designating  himself  as  the  spirit- 
ual descendant  of  this  people.  But  this  very  fact  shows  how 
much  more  important  civilization  is  than  race. 

1  "Rassen  und  Volker"  ("Races  and  Peoples"),  by  Ludwig  Wilser, 
1912.     Theodor  Thoma:      Leip^ic 

-'  A  civilized  state  and  a  national  state  are  not  antitheses.  The  word 
"national"  does  not  fundamentally  imply  merely  a  racial  atfiliation. 
The  words  "people"  and  "nation"  no  lonjzer  retain  a  clearly  defined 
meaning,  because  intentionally  and  unintentionally  their  distinguishing 
characteristics  have  been  confused.  It  would  easily  he  possible  to  define 
these  words;  others  have  done  so.  This  seems  superfluous,  not  to  say 
harmful,  to  me.  The  fact  that  no  one  really  knows  what  a  people  and 
what  a  nation  is,  proves  more  conclusively  than  any  words  that  peoj)Ies 
and  nations  are  no  longer  delinite  realities.  There  is  no  such  confusion 
about  the  conception  of  state.  From  this  conception  the  future  develop- 
ment will  take  its  departure. 


286  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

It  is  difficult  to  see  bow  meu  like  Chamberlaiu  have  arrived 
at  their  conclusions.  In  the  case  of  Chamberlain,  in  particu- 
lar, I  believe  that  he  often  writes  things  of  the  correctness 
of  which  he  himself  is  not  convinced.  For  instance,  for  the 
fantastic  statement,  "that  the  Goths  in  large  numbers  have 
accepted  Judaism,"  he  gives  as  his  authority  "a  learned 
specialist  of  the  University  of  Vienna,"  but  he  does  not  give 
his  name.^  Again  he  quotes  letters,-  which  he  claims  to  have 
received,  and  their  contents  supplement  one  another  in  an 
extraordinary  fashion.  The  impartial,  critical  reader  cannot 
help  but  feel  that  in  such  eases  the  author  was  more  interested 
in  giving  a  pleasing  artistic  form  to  his  work  than  in  facts 
themselves.  It  might  have  been  preferable,  if,  like  his  great 
master,  Gobineau,  he  had  chosen  a  purely  fictional  form  of 
presentment. 

It  is  also  possible  that  the  entire  Pan-German  theory  de- 
pends upon  nothing  more  than  a  most  regrettable  misunder- 
standing. The  claim  is  made  that  the  various  European  na- 
tions have  resulted  from  a  mixture  of  the  original  primitive 
inhabitants  with  the  Teutons  who  overran  them  during  the 
later  migrations.  In  Germany,  on  the  other  hand.  Teutons 
were  merely  mixed  with  Teutons,  and  that  thus  the  race  here 
remained  pure. 

In  fact,  however,  skeletons  and  other  remains  show  con- 
clusively that  there  was  a  race  of  primitive  inhabitants  in 
Germany  as  well,  going  back  as  far  as  the  diluvial  period. 
At  the  time  of  the  Cimric  invasion  and  later,  when  the  stream 
of  the  Teutonic  migrations  burst  upon  them,  this  population 
partly  emigrated,  or  at  least  withdrew  into  the  mountainous 
regions,  partly  perished,  and  partly  mingled  with  the  new- 
comers. A  primitive  population  dwelt  here  as  well  as  in  the 
other  European  countries  at  a  time  when  the  rhinoceros  and 

1  H.  St.  Chamberlain's  "Die  Gnindlagen  des  19  Jahrhunderts"  ("The 
Foundations  of  the  Nineteenth  Century")  :  Munich,  1904,  5th  Edition, 
vol  11,  p.  104. 

2  76i(Z.  (1915),  "Neue  Kriegsaufsatze"  ("New  Essays  on  the  War"), 
pp.  17,  18. 


DIFFERENT  SPECIES  OF  PATRIOTISM        287 

the  elephant  still  roamed  through  Europe.  A  mixture  of  these 
primitive  inhabitants  and  Celts  seems  to  have  lived  along  the 
Rhine  at  the  time  when  the  Romans  arrived.  However  dear 
Scheffel's  old  song,  "Es  wohnten  die  alten  Germanen  zu  bei- 
den  Seiten  des  Rheins"  ("The  ancient  Germans  lived  on  both 
sides  of  the  Rhine"),  may  be  to  us,  it  is  not  a  fact.  Ariovistus 
racially  was  not  a  Teuton,  but  a  Celt.  If  at  that  time  any  one 
lived  on  both  sides  of  the  Rhine,  it  was  the  Celts.  But 
Tacitus  called  these  people  Germani,  and  this  name  was  later 
applied  to  the  tribes  which  broke  forth  from  the  region  in 
which  Ariovistus  had  lived.  They  were  Ostrogoths,  Visigoths, 
Vandals,  etc.  The  error  dates  from  that  time.  The  Germani 
of  Tacitus  and  those  of  the  Teutonic  migrations  are  some- 
thing quite  distinct.  For  a  long  time  no  one  definitely  knew 
what  the  Germans  were.  Even  as  late  as  the  twelfth  and  thir- 
teenth centuries  the  French  were  the  more  likely  to  be  called 
Germans.^ 

In  the  meantime  another  name  arose.  In  France  a  dis- 
tinction had  been  made  at  an  early  period  between  the  lingua 
romana  rusiica  in  the  West  and  the  lingua  theodosica  in  the 
East  (that  is,  in  Germany).  These  words  designated  a  lan- 
guage only  and  not  a  people,  just  as  to-day,  when  we  say 
some  one  speaks  High  German,  we  do  not  mean  to  imply  that 
he  belongs  to  a  definite  racial  division. 

Later  in  the  eleventh  century-  the  substantive  Teuton  ^  was 
formed  from  thcodisk,  which  was  used  only  as  an  adjective, 
merely  resembling  the  other  in  sound,  but  in  no  wise  related 
to  it. 

This  word  denoted  from  the  very  beginning  a  cultural 
and  linguistic,  not  a  racial,  relation.  The  absurd  legend  of 
the  giant  Theuto,  as  the  common  ancestor  of  all  Teutons,  in- 

1  Joh.  Kinnamos  (circa  1200)  I,  II,  c.  15,  18  (ed.  Meineche:  Bonn, 
1836,  p.  77  and  S4 )  calls  the  Germans  "Allemanni"  and  the  French 
"dermani." 

2  Miillcrlinf  and  many  others  with  him  regard  the  term  Teutonic  as  a 
Celtic  word. 


288  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

vestigatioii  has  shown  was  not  invented  until  the  thirteenth 
century. 

This  linguistic  division  accords  with  the  fact  that  a  transi- 
tion had  taken  place  in  the  mean  time.  The  Teutonic  hordes 
had  become  inhabitants  of  German  territory.  The  Teutons, 
Celts,  and  Slavs  were  German  in  so  far  as  they  spoke  the 
German  language.  In  this  way  the  German  nation  was 
founded ;  but  we  cannot  reiterate  it  often  enough  that  the 
element  of  race  had  nothing  to  do  with  it. 

The  facts  to  which  attention  is  here  called  are  in  no  way 
complex  ;  they  are  accepted  as  established  by  the  unprejudiced. 
The  difficulty  for  ordinary  readers  arises  through  the  con- 
tinual confusion  of  Teutons  with  Gennans.  For  instance, 
Ratzel*  in  his  popular  work  states,  "There  was  a  time  when 
the  greater  part  of  our  country  was  not  inhabited  hy  Ger- 
mans"; and  again,  "it  is  historically  established  that  southern 
and  western  Germany  were  not  inhabited  by  Germans  when 
the  Romans  first  penetrated  into  those  regions."  Despite  this, 
he  maintains  that  the  people  described  by  Tacitus  must  have 
been  Teutons.  Of  course,  Ratzcls  conception  of  "Germania" 
is  broader  than  "German,"  but  no  matter  how  comprehensive 
the  term,  even  Ratzel  would  hardly  include  the  Celts  among 
the  Teutons.  Conflicting  statements  like  these,  however, 
simplify  things  only  for  writers  like  Chamberlain. 

§  105. — The  European  Bace 

In  a  broad  general  w^ay  there  are  no  pure  races  in  Europe, 
no  true  species  in  the  zoological  sense,  not  even  constant  varie- 
ties. 

The  only  question  that  may  arise  is  whether  there  is  a 
"European  race,"  which  can  be  distinguished  from  the  Asiatic 
Mongols,  the  African  negroes,  the  Australasians,  and  the 
American  Indians.  Even  this  would  hardly  be  the  case  if 
race  meant  to  us  some  clearly  defined  or  even  zoological  con- 

iFr.  Ratzel,  "Deutschland"  ("Germany"),  p.  273. 


DIFFERENT  SPECIES  OF  PATRIOTISM        289 

ception.  The  old  traditional  division  according  to  geographi- 
cal regions  is  to-day  discredited.  It  was  easy  to  show  that  the 
actual  relations  were  often  dependent  upon  something  quite 
different.  The  unfortunate  term,  "Indo-Germanic  peoples," 
was  largely  responsible  for  this,  for  this  term  was  based  not 
upon  race,  but  upon  language.  Linguistic  relationship  has 
been  made  the  keystone  of  the  problem  of  race.  Without 
wishing  to  underestimate  the  scientific  importance  of  this  re- 
lation, we  must  nevertheless  confess  that  it  has  caused  a 
complete  shift  in  the  meaning  of  the  word  "race." 

It  may  be  true,  and  probably  is,  that  pure  races  no  longer 
inhabit  definite  regions  of  the  world.  But  by  a  geographical 
arrangement  we  may  at  any  rate  obtain  human  groups  which 
in  a  broad  general  way  have  certain  relatively  uniform  char- 
acteristics in  their  history,  civilization,  language,  and  physical 
attributes  that  differentiate  them  fairly  sharply  from  other 
races. 

The  concept,  a  people,  a  nation,  a  group  of  peoples,  and 
even  that  of  a  race,  depends  not  only  upon  a  common  origin, 
but  also  upon  common  language,  civilization,  morals,  and 
habits  of  life.  It  would  be  absurd  to  exclude,  for  instance, 
the  Finns  and  Hungarians,  the  Welsh  and  Bas(]ues,  the  Prus- 
sians and  Mechlenburgians,  from  the  community  of  Europe 
simply  because  they  unquestionably  are  racially  distinct  from 
the  other  Europeans.  No  German  would  ever  think  of  regard- 
ing the  Mechlenburgians  and  Prussians  as  anything  else  but 
Germans,  and  of  stressing  his  relationship  to  the  Hindus. 

There  is  no  such  thing  as  a  patriotism  based  upon  racial 
descent.  Just  because  it  is  vague  and  indefinite,  extrava- 
gant claims  are  made  for  it.  They  are  usually  grotes<iue  and 
irritating  in  effect.  It  is  likewise  impossible  to  establish 
German  patriotism  on  a  racial  basis.  But  if  we  say  that  the 
German  peoples  have  been  welded  into  a  new  unity  by  their 
common  civilization,  we  are  within  the  range  of  possibility 
and  fact.     But  more  of  this  will  be  said  in  the  next  section. 


290  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

There  is  one  thing  to  which  I  wish  to  call  attention.  Since 
Germans  have  no  common  ethnological  origin,  Germanism  is 
not  an  inherited  possession.  A  common  civilization  has  to 
be  won  and  secured  anew  every  day.    Jt  is  well  that  this  is  so. 

4. — CIVILIZATION    AND   PATRIOTISM 

§  106. — The  M2dtiplicity  of  Combinations 

The  national  and  racial  kinships  which  we  have  so  far 
considered  constitute  only  two  forms  of  an  infinite  number  of 
possible  combinations. 

The  combination  of  human  beings  into  larger  groups  can 
as  a  matter  of  fact  take  place  on  the  basis  of  innumerable 
common  interests.  Eeligion  and  art,  science  and  occupation, 
similar  predilections,  and  similar  antipathies,  divide  human- 
ity into  larger  or  smaller  circles.  These  circles  will  never 
entirely  correspond ;  on  the  contrary,  they  frequently  intersect. 
For  instance,  a  man  may  feel  a  kinship  with  a  thousand  other 
men  through  the  bond  of  his  religion,  with  other  thousands 
through  the  bonds  of  a  common  belief  in  art  or  interest  in 
sports,  or  merely  through  a  common  occupation.  Fig.  7  shows 
how  numerous  such  combinations  may  be.  Germans  and 
French  and  Catholics  and  Evangelicals  are  each  represented 
by  a  circle.  The  overlapping  parts  of  circles  show  the  num- 
ber of  separate  combinations  resulting  from  this  pair  of  op- 
posites.  It  is  furthermore  assumed  that  there  are  only  bonds 
between  Germans  and  French  (Lorrainers),  but  not  between 
Catholics  and  Evangelicals;  consequently,  four  groups  are 
excluded :  the  Catholic-Evangelical  Germans,  French,  Lorrain- 
ers, and  other  human  beings. 

The  term  in  the  second  column  indicates  the  concept  that 
imight  result.  This  term  does  not  fully  comprehend  the  con- 
cepts proper,  formed  solely  out  of  the  two  opposites.  There 
are  many  additional  circles  representing  nuances,  and  the 
number  of  possible  combinations  rises  very  rapidly,  as  fol- 
lows : 


DIFFERENT  SPECIES  OF  PATRIOTISM        291 

1  pair  of  opposites  results  in        5  possibilities 
o     ((     '(  «  «       «       25  '' 

3  "      "  "  "       "       63  " 

4  "      '<  "  '<       «     255  " 

5  "     "  "  "       "  1023  "        ,  etc. 

Let  us  consider  some  of  the  applications  according  to  which 
people  in  Germany  may  be  grouped.  There  are  those  who 
speak  German,  Polish,  French,  or  Danish ;  there  are  Catholics 
and  Protestants,  Jews,  and  dissenters,  nationalists  and  cos- 
mopolitans, materialists  and  idealists,  employees  and  employ- 
ers, professional  men,  state  officials,  conservatives,  and  liberals, 
social  democrats  and  non-voters,  and  those  who  have  artistic, 
scientific,  technical,  or  philosophical  tastes.  These  are  only 
a  few  of  the  fundamental  applications,  but  they  allow  for  a 
vast  number  of  possible  combinations.  Accurately  worked 
out,  there  are  16,770,215,  and  in  this  list  many  determining 
factors  have  been  omitted,  such  as  whether  a  man  is  a  col- 
lector or  sportsman,  a  vegetarian  or  prohibitionist,  or  any 
other  "ist." 

However  great  the  diversity  when  it  comes  to  the  issue  of 
one's  country,  each  one  is  supposed  to  be  cut  to  the  same 
measure.  We  are  supposed  to  shed  everything  that  gives  indi- 
vidual distinction  to  a  human  being.  The  abstract  ''average 
German"  alone  is  supposed  to  remain.  lie  is  represented  by  a 
circle  which  in  itself  has  perhaps  the  smallest  actual  contents. 
It  seems  important  only  because  for  a  multitude  of  people  it 
serves  as  a  substitute  for  many  other  circles. 

Riimelin  ^  feels  this  conflict.  He  indicates  the  different 
relations,  and  then  continues:  "One  motive  may  draw  us  to 
one  circle,  another  to  a  different  one.  .  .  .  But  we  feel  and  re- 
gret every  such  division  and  incompleteness  of  our  mood. 
There  is  always  a  silent  yearning  for  a  full  and  complete 
community  of  life."  But  he  fails  to  offer  a  solution  when 
he  demands  that  human  beings  shall  renounce  their  individual 

1  Riimelin,  "Uber  den  BegriflF  des  Volkes"  ("On  the  Conception  of 
People").     "Aufsatze"   ("Essays"),  I.,  p.  103. 


292  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

desires  and  attacli  themselves  to  the  fatherland  as  the  ''cen- 
tral group  which  embraces  all  objects  of  life."  The  present 
form  of  fatherland,  essentially  built  up  by  historical  force, 
no  longer  satisties  the  claims  of  free  men.  A  fatherland  must 
be  a  living  organism,  capable  of  change.  It  must  represent, 
as  Eduard  Mej^er  ^  once  said,  "A  conscious,  active,  and  crea- 
tive will."  For  this  reason  a  nation  which  we  can  respect 
must  be  reconstructed  day  b}'  day  by  the  plebiscites  of  a 
free  people.^ 

Each  human  being  is  an  individuality ;  no  two  are  exactly 
alike.  More  is  required  than  mere  co-citizenship  in  one  and 
the  same  state. 

"Even  in  our  fatherland  we  must  have  the  power  of  choice, 
though  our  sympathies  should  lie  on  the  other  side  of  the 
frontier."  ^ 

A  human  being  ceases  to  be  a  human  being — that  is,  a  per- 
sonality— when  he  has  to  praise  his  country  simply  because  it 
is  his  country, 

§  107. — States  within  a  State 

A  Goethe  student — I  think  it  was  Bielschowsky — once  justly 
said  that  every  one  who  has  read  Goethe  has  become  in  part 
German.  So,  too,  every  one  who  loves  Beethoven's  music, 
who  has  studied  Kant's  philosophy,  or  who  admires  Robert 
Koch's  technic,  is  in  part  German,  even  if  he  does  not  know 
the  work  of  these  men  directly,  but  merely  follows  the  paths 
which  they  have  laid  out.  It  is  just  as  much  true  that  who- 
ever admires  Shakspere,  Newton,  or  Darwin  is  in  part  Eng- 
lish, and  he  is  part  Russian  who  puts  high  store  on  Tolstoy, 
Pawlow,  or  even  the  Russian  folk-song.     Whoever  has  been 

1  Eduard  Meyer,  "Die  Anfiinge  des  Staates"  ( "The  Beginnings  of  the 
State" ) . 

2  Ernest  Renan,  "L'existence  d'une  nation  est  un  plebiscite  de  tous  des 
jours."      ("Q'est-ce  gu'une  nation,"  p.  27.) 

3  Arnold  Ruge,  "Zwei  Jahre  in  Paris,  Studien  und  Erinnerungen" 
("Two  Years  in  Paris,  Studies  and  Recollections"),  vol.  II.,  p.  221. 
Jurany:  Leipsic. 


DIFFERENT  SPECIES  OF  PATRIOTISM        293 

brought  up  on  Homer,  or,  as  was  frequently  the  case  during 
the  Middle  Ages,  on  Aristotle,  or  more  recently  on  Plato,  is 
a  Hellene.  Whoever  believes  in  the  liberty  which  resulted 
from  the  French  Revolution  is  French.  Our  admiration  for 
Dante  or  the  Cinquecento  makes  us  to  a  degree  Italian,  and 
Cervantes  beguiles  us  to  become  Spanish. 

The  nationality  of  a  civilized  human  being  is  very  diverse. 
Richard  Dehmel  was  quite  correct  when  he  once  said  that 
he  owed  his  little  bit  of  brains  to  ten  nations.  Each  human 
being  is  his  own  world.  The  more  highly  cultivated,  the 
more  ditferentiated  two  human  beings,  the  more  difficult  it  is 
for  one  to  say  to  the  other  unreservedly,  "You,  too,  are  of 
my  world.'*  Great  men  especially  feel  the  weight  of  the  lone- 
liness which  results  from  their  exceptional  endowments.  Is 
there  any  one  who  has  not  felt  the  resignation  of  Schubert's 
song,  "The  folk  that  my  tongue  speaks,  the  distant  folk,  I 
find  it  not, ' '  at  moments  when  music  has  borne  him  above  the 
level  of  every  day,  or  who  has  not  applied  to  himself  Schiller 's 
phrase,  "I,  too,  was  born  in  Arcady." 

This  sura-total  of  civilization  is  too  individualistic  to  have 
been  able  to  serve  as  the  foundation  for  states.  Certain  par- 
ticular elements  were  selected.  There  is  no  common  heritage 
of  present-day  civilization  which  has  not  at  some  period  in  his- 
tory served  as  an  element  in  the  formation  of  states. 

The  nations  of  Islam  owe  much  to  their  common  religion. 
The  contrasts  and  similarities  resulting  from  it  are  still  an 
important  political  factor  in  the  near  East.  The  Christian 
Church  also  at  first  tended  strongly  in  this  direction.  It  an- 
nounced the  communion  of  saints  and  the  kingdom  of  God 
upon  earth.  The  latter  was  surely  conceived  as  a  religious 
state.  It  failed,  perhaps,  for  the  very  reason  that  its  aims 
were  in  advance  of  their  time,  and  in  that  it  sought  the  broth- 
erhood of  all  men.  Indeed,  at  the  time  of  the  crusades  there 
was  the  beginning  of  a  homogeneous  Christian  Europe.  The 
Thirty  Years'  War,  on  the  contrary,  showed  that  Christianity 
was  not  adapted  to  be  the  groundworii  of  a  single  unified  state. 


294  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

During  the  period  of  the  Reformation  diversity  in  religion 
was,  nevertheless,  sometimes  a  more  powerful  motive  than 
diversity  of  state  or  nation.  Swiss  Catholics  fought  on  the 
side  of  Spain,  and  French  Huguenots  on  the  side  of  England. 
To-day  religion  plays  usually  only  a  subordinate  part.  In 
countries  like  Poland,  Alsace,  the  Trentino,  and  the  Baltic 
Provinces,  where  the  nationalities  are  mixed,  it  is  quite  true 
that  the  priest  employs  religious  enthusiasm  for  national  ends, 
but  the  importance  of  such  efforts  should  not  be  overestimated. 

This  has  again  been  shown  in  Italy.  The  hopes  based  on 
the  old  conflict  between  the  Clericals  and  the  House  of 
Savoy,  which  were  fostered  especially  by  Erzberger,  failed 
completely.  Even  intransigent  cardinals  like  Ferrari  have 
prayers  said  in  the  churches  for  an  Italian  victory.  The  jihad 
also  was  a  blow  into  the  blue.  This  holy  war,  of  the  fright- 
fulness  of  which  people  have  been  telling  marvelous  tales  for 
decades,  appears  not  even  to  have  lured  a  single  dog  from  be- 
hind the  stove.  It  seems  as  if  the  utmost  possible  fanaticism 
was  for  the  time  being  concentrated  among  the  civilized 
nations  of  Europe. 

During  the  Middle  Ages  the  groupings  according  to  occupa- 
tion or  trades  played  an  important  role.  The  gilds  and 
crafts  were  efforts  that  extended  far  beyond  the  boundaries  of 
individual  states.  They  formed  simultaneously  a  state  within 
a  state  or  between  different  states.  A  genuine  tendency 
toward  the  formation  of  a  state  occurred  in  the  Hanseatic 
League,  the  league  of  the  Rhenish  cities,  and  the  peasant 
movements.  Whether  the  international  endeavors  of  the  pro- 
letariat will  lead  to  further  developments  is  questionable. 
The  occupational  instinct  was  completely  vanquished  by  the 
national  instincts  at  the  outbreak  of  the  War  in  1914. 

That  the  various  castes  form  states  within  a  state  or  be- 
tween the  different  states  is  well  known.  So  the  church  is  in- 
ternational, and  so  are  the  proletariat,  the  nobility,  and  the  rul- 
ers of  nations.  It  is  not  every  German  who  is  the  equal  in  birth 
of  the  German  Kaiser;  his  equals  are  a  large,  very  mixed 


DIFFERENT  SPECIES  OF  PATRIOTISM        295 

class  of  international  old  families.  We  may  abuse  Russia  as 
a  "louse-land"  to  our  heart's  content,  but  its  "louse-prince"  ^ 
remains  the  kaiser's  equal  in  birth,  and  no  German,  how- 
ever high  his  position,  can  ever  become  so.  There  are  no 
national  princely  dynasties,  only  international  ones.  During 
the  course  of  the  war  the  English  have  often  been  taunted 
with  the  fact  that  their  kings  have  German  blood.  German 
princes  usually  have  also  much  English,  or  at  least  foreign, 
blood.  The  czar  himself  was  not  a  Russian  by  blood.  This 
likewise  is  true  of  the  greater  and  lesser  nobility. 

Purely  negative  elements  like  antipathy  or  hatred  may 
likewise  tend  to  form  states  or  leagues  of  states.  There  have 
been  many  wars  of  coalitions  in  Europe.  The  special  object 
of  the  coalition  against  France  was  to  attack  the  French  con- 
ception of  liberty. 

It  is  by  no  means  necessary  that  such  coalitions  should  al- 
ways be  directed  against  liberty.  In  America  representatives 
of  the  most  diverse  nations  flock  with  a  new  love  about  the 
Stars  and  Stripes.  This  is  partly  due  to  the  weariness  and 
aversion  with  which  the  European  immigrants  view  their 
old  home.  It  would  be  desirable  if  some  such  coalition  could 
be  organized  against  the  various  medievalisms  of  Europe.  If 
it  once  came  into  being,  it  would  prove  more  lasting  than 
previous  coalitions  have  been. 

It  seems  as  if  all  these  forms  of  patriotic  civilization  would 
have  to  remain  ineffective  because  there  is  too  much  disj)ersed 
effort.  Religion  and  art,  occupation  and  preference,  rarely 
make  a  complete  human  being.  They  are  not  determining  fac- 
tors in  the  history  of  mankind. 

> 

§  108. — Language  as  a  Formative  Element  of  States 

There  is  one  factor  in  civilization  which  is  of  superlative 
importance.  It  is  more  comprehensive  than  any  of  those 
hitherto  mentioned.     It  is  so  exclusively  designed  for  definite 

1  Alluding  to  the  last  syllable  of  Nico/ows  (English  Xkhulas),  the 
name  of  the  laat  czar. — Translator. 


296  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

groups  of  men  that  it  automatically  brings  about  a  certain 
natural  grouping.  This  is  language.  It  is  the  depositary  in 
which  man  places  as  permanent  legacy  all  the  conceptions 
that  he  has  acquired  in  the  course  of  time.  It  is  to  him  art  and 
religion  and  science  and  more ;  for  this  reason  it  is  self-evident 
that  a  soeieiy  built  up  on  the  basis  of  language  must  be  of 
incomparable  importance. 

Every  one  feels  that  a  man  who  speaks  his  own  language 
is  a  fellow-countryman,  and  that  he  who  speaks  another  lan- 
guage is  a  foreigner.  It  is  natural  that  when  German  patriot- 
ism began  to  stir  the  first  desire  was  to  have  a  German  coun- 
try coextensive  with  tlie  regions  where  German  was  spoken. 
In  his  address  of  welcome  at  the  first  Congress  of  Gerraanists 
at  Frankfort  on  the  Main,  Jacob  Grimjn,  its  first  president, 
said : 

"By  a  people  is  understood  an  aggregate  of  men  who  speak 
the  same  language.  This  declaration  should  fill  us  Germans 
with  pride,  for  it  indicates  that  inevitably  linguistic  boundar- 
ies will  win  the  victory  over  boundaries  arbitrarily  set."  All 
those  present  acclaimed  this  statement.  Among  them  were 
poets  like  E.  ^I.  Arndt  and  Ludwig  Uhland,  politicians  like 
Dahlmann  and  Beseler,  jurists  like  Welker  and  Mittermaier, 
Germanists  like  Lachmann  and  Wilhelm  Grimm,  historians 
like  Ranhe  and  Gervinus,  as  well  as  Falk,  who  later  became 
Prussian  minister. 

This  elemental  feeling  of  homogeneity  among  those  who  use 
the  same  language  exists  everywhere.  The  Italian  irredentist 
is  indifferent  to  the  fact  that  Germanic  descendants  of  the 
ancient  Longobards  dwell  in  the  plain  of  the  Po,  or  that  the 
region  of  the  upper  Isonzo  is  inhabited  by  descendants  of  the 
homo  alpinus,  who  was  anything  but  Italian.  He  merely  says 
that  wherever  Italian  is  spoken  the  Italian  flag  should  wave. 
Even  he  who  for  political  reasons  opposes  this  interpretation 
cannot  help  but  feel  in  his  heart  that  his  opponents  are  in  the 
right. 

It  is  more  or  less  correct  that  since  the  beginning  of  Euro- 


DIFFERExNT  SPECIES  OF  PATRIOTIS.AI        297 

pean  history  we  have  understood  by  a  German  one  who 
speaks  German,  and  by  a  Frenchman  one  who  speaks  French. 
We  may  assume  that  this  will  continue  to  be  so.  The  line  of 
historical  development  has  been  in  this  direction  ever  since 
the  great  French  Revolution  for  the  first  time  virtually  enunci- 
ated the  doctrine  of  human  liberty  and  self-determination. 
The  only  states  which  exist  at  present  are  those  whose  bounda- 
ries are  reasonably  in  accordance  with  language.  The  only  ex- 
ception is  unfortunate  Austria,  and  it  is  a  relic  of  medieval 
times.  All  geographical  rearrangements  which  have  occurred 
since  then,  such  as  the  unification  of  Italy,  the  partial  unifica- 
tion of  Germany,  and  the  creation  of  national  Balkan  States, 
have  been  made  in  the  sense  of  linguistic  uniformity.  Nice, 
Lorraine,  and  northern  Schleswig  are  exceptions. 

In  addition  to  these  three  anti-national  events,  there  are 
Switzerland,  Luxemburg,  and  Belgium.  Here  the  linguistic 
boundaries  overlap  as  the  result  of  the  diplomatic  shifts  of 
earlier  days.  A  certain  recognition  of  the  abnormal  status 
of  these  countries  is  seen  in  the  fact  they  are  not  fully  ac- 
cepted as  countries,  but  are  neutralized.  That  language  is  the 
reason  for  their  neutralization  rather  than  their  relative  unim- 
portance is  apparent  when  we  consider  that  many  much 
smaller  countries  are  not  neutralized. 

§  109. — The  Ideal  of  European  Patriotism 

Formerly  people  were  devoted  to  an  ideal,  or,  when  they 
had  no  ideals,  to  material  advantages.  "Whenever  there  was 
any  likelihood  of  realizing  this  ideal  or  these  advantages  in 
or  through  one's  country,  people  loved  their  country.  It  rep- 
resented the  ideal.  They  fought  and  sacrificed  themselves  for 
it.  But  when  a  man's  country  failed  to  realize  his  ideal,  he 
could  repudiate  the  country,  stand  apart  sadly,  for  no  one  likes 
to  be  alone,  or  he  could  even  fight  against  his  country.  The 
noblest  men  in  history  have  acted  in  this  way. 

In  ancient  Greece  the  exiles,  whether  they  were  oligarchs  or 
democrats,  calmly  fought  against  their  native  country.     They 


298  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

placed  a  higher  value  upon  the  imperishable  ideal  than  upon 
the  accidental  place  of  birth.  Coriolanus  fought  against 
Rome.  This  has  been  the  case  for  thousands  of  years.  In 
Germany  especially  there  have  been  innumerable  instances; 
in  England  also.  Just  to  mention  a  few  examples,  the  Stuarts 
accepted  the  help  of  France,  that  is  to  say,  the  help  of  the 
arch-enemy.  During  the  period  of  the  Reformation  all  the 
world  was  divided  according  to  religion,  quite  independent  of 
country.  Swiss  Catholics  fought  on  the  side  of  Spain ;  French 
Huguenots  supported  Protestant  England.  Dante  in  all  tran- 
quillity and  without  being  blamed  for  it  rose  against  his  native 
Florence.  Algernon  Sidney,  the  great  English  republican, 
entered  into  negotiations  with  Louis  XIV. 

Even  after  the  French  Revolution  the  French  nobility 
fought  on  the  side  of  the  Allies  against  the  republic,  and, 
conversely,  later  many  French  republicans  fought  for  Ger- 
many during  the  struggle  against  Napoleon,  as,  for  example, 
Moreau  at  Leipsic.  And  even  later,  in  times  which  we  to-day 
would  call  full  of  a  stirring  nationalism,  as  during  the  Greek 
War  of  Independence,  the  motive  force  was  liberty,  not  a  gen- 
eralized love  of  one's  country.  Miaoulis  of  Hydra,  the  great 
victor  over  the  Turks,  for  reasons  of  petty  particularism 
burned  the  entire  Greek  fleet  in  order  that  it  might  fall  into 
the  hands  of  the  opposing  party  under  Capodistria. 

If  in  those  times,  when  liberty  of  decision  was  still  possible, 
a  man  felt  patriotic,  his  patriotism  was  an  ethical  act,  be- 
cause it  depended  on  liberty  and  the  primacy  of  reason.  To- 
day such  liberty  of  decision  is  almost  unthinkable.  No  mat- 
ter what  a  person's  ideals  may  be,  it  is  in  all  seriousness 
demanded  that  he  regard  the  country  of  his  birth  and  the  in- 
stitutions which  surround  him  as  the  best  possible.  Such  a 
patriotism  is  no  longer  an  ethical  demand;  it  is  the  slave- 
like or,  better  still,  the  animal-like,  gregarious  love  of  an  ant- 
hill or  bee-hive.  No  one  can  escape  the  pressure  of  this  mod- 
em idol.  Even  the  most  radical  Russians,  who  probably  hate 
czarism  more  vehemently  than  anything  else,  released  their 


DIFFERENT  SPECIES  OF  PATRIOTISM        299 

adherents  to  join  in  the  battle  against  Germany.  This  was 
only  done  after  considerable  reflection,  but  was  not  due  to 
external  pressure.  The  leaders  who  made  the  decision  lived 
at  liberty  abroad,  partly  in  neutral  Switzerland.  They  did 
it  because  to-day  patriotism  as  such  is  regarded  as  more 
precious  than  the  most  sacred  rights  of  man. 

This  excessive  and  exclusive  patriotism  is  scarcely  more  than 
one  hundred  or  one  hundred  and  fifty  years  old.  Let  us  cease, 
therefore,  to  compare  our  present-day  patriotism  with  that  of 
the  ancients.  Even  those  who  appraise  the  modem  type  of 
patriotism  hig:hly  should  at  least  realize  that  it  is  something 
different.  Let  us  grant  that  it  has  its  roots  in  venerable  tra- 
ditions, but  it  is  not  identical  with  those  roots.  Let  us  hope 
that  it  is  merely  a  flower  which  will  not  blow  for  more  than  a 
season. 

May  the  old  type  of  patriotism  return.  It  did  not  love  with- 
out the  liberty  of  choice,  but  only  after  stern  testing.  Let  it 
be  rooted  in  the  old,  let  it  include  love  of  one's  native  coun- 
try ;  but  do  not  let  it  degenerate  into  hatred.  Let  it  take 
into  consideration  the  old  elements  of  religion  and  morals, 
but  let  it  pay  heed  also  to  the  new,  young  convictions  which 
are  in  a  state  of  development.  Above  everything  else,  let 
it  turn  the  dynastic  patriotism  into  a  belief  in  a  democratic 
citizenship. 

Let  it  be  the  completion  of  what  has  gone  before;  let  it  be 
love  for  that  which  is  individualistic,  which,  nevertheless,  will 
not  exclude  the  love  for  that  which  benefits  all. 

In  this  final  generalization  both  the  high  aim  and  the  diffi- 
culty are  apparent.  The  timid  may  feel  that  the  one  excludes 
the  other.  But  here  fundamentally,  as  in  everything  else,  the 
question  is  merely  one  of  liberty.  Let  there  be  a  general 
cohesion  and  development  in  accordance  with  the  principle  of 
liberty.  Let  there  be,  on  the  individualistic  side,  an  unques- 
tioned possibility  to  exercise  one's  interest  in  the  general 
good,  even  beyond  the  narrower  boundaries  of  one's  country. 
Compel  no  larger  group  of  people  to  be  part  of  an  alien  state. 


300  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

By  these  means  the  possibilities  of  conflict  will  be  removed. 

"Before  science  and  art  all  barriers  of  nationality  disap- 
pear," says  Goethe.  "The  re-birth  of  Poland  is  identical 
with  liberty  in  Europe,"  says  Brandes. 

These  two  statements  are  so  self-evident  that  they  can 
hardly  be  disputed.  Whoever  has  really  accepted  them  need 
have  no  fear  concerning  the  vitality  of  patriotism. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  already  lives  on  the  other  side  of  the 
Atlantic.  In  America  the  meaning  of  this  new  cosmopolitan 
patriotism  is  already  evident ;  there  the  restrictions  that  are 
still  necessary  also  appear. 

The  old  tiny  nationalities  have  grown  too  narrow  for  a  free 
patriotism,  just  as  in  Germany  Hessian,  Bavarian,  and  Prussian 
patriotism  was  too  limited.  The  time  for  a  universal  brother- 
hood of  man  has  not  yet  arrived.  The  clefts  which  separate 
the  white  race  from  the  yellow  and  black  are  still  too  deep. 
In  America  this  European  patriotism  has  awakened.  It  will 
doubtless  be  the  type  of  the  immediate  future,  and  we  should 
like  to  be  its  precursors.  When  Americans  say,  "America 
for  Americans,"  what  they  really  mean  is  America  for  the 
free  descendants  of  white  Europeans.  Despite  all  the  enthu- 
siasm for  the  emancipation  of  slaves,  racial  antagonism  toward 
non-Europeans  is  more  marked  in  America  than  anywhere  else. 
In  the  Southern  States  it  often  assumes  ridiculous  and  gro- 
tesque forms. 

In  America  they  have  understood  what  the  struggle  is  about. 
It  was  possible  for  the  new  patriotism  to  be  born  there,  because 
the  old  dynastic  patriotism  of  European  states  was  there  trans- 
muted through  liberty  and  responsibility  into  a  true  civiliza- 
tion patriotism,  even  if  it  is  still  inseparable  from  race.  The 
new  Europe  is  already  born  not  in  Europe,  but  in  America, 
where  there  are  no  ruined  castles,  no  worn-out  and  grotesque 
medievalisms. 

The  new  Europe  is  born.  We  who  have  remained  here 
in  Europe  should  take  heed  that  it  may  also  become  a  living 
force  in  the  older  countries.     Otherwise  civilization  will  be 


DIFFERENT  SPECIES  OF  PATRIOTISM        301 

permanently  transferred  to  America.  This  would  be  hu- 
miliating to  us,  though  objectively  considered  not  nearly  as  bad 
as  if  might  were  peraianently  transferred  to  the  .Alougolians. 
Both  civilization  and  might  require  a  European  patriotism. 


CHAPTER  IX 

Unjustifiable  Chauvinism 

1. — selfishness  and  love 
§  110. — Love  of  One's  Country  7iot  Real  Love 

Like  goodness,  justice,  and  the  feeling  for  beauty,  love  can 
become  so  idealized  that  no  trace  of  defect  can  be  found  in  it. 
No  one  can  call  the  love  that  Christ  preached  and  practised 
evil.  When,  in  contradiction  to  its  essence,  love  is  directed 
toward  one's  self,  accentuating  the  instinct  of  self-preserva- 
tion, it  may  become  a  vice.  Its  normal  function  is  to  mitigate 
this  instinct. 

These  kinds  of  selfishness  are  called  love  only  because  of 
the  poverty  of  our  language.  People  in  general,  who  have 
a  fine  instinct  in  such  things,  have  invented  new  words  to 
designate  them,  apparently  because  the  word  "love"  had  a 
deeper  significance  to  them.  "Whoever  loves  himself  is  not  self- 
loving,  but  self-seeking.  Excessive  love  of  one's  family  is 
called  "monkey-love "(doting  affection).  Excessive  love  of 
one's  country  is  called  not  patriotism,  but  "chauvinism." 
Such  linguistic  usages  disclose  the  fact  that  love  of  one's 
self  and  of  one's  own  interests,  and  consequently,  in  cer- 
tain circumstances,  of  one's  country,  can  be  exaggerated.  It 
is  only  relatively  a  virtue,  at  least  at  the  time  when  these 
terms  arose.  This  was  the  opinion  of  the  overwhelming  mass 
of  mankind. 

"We  have  already  gone  beyond  the  na'i've  over-estimation 
which  children  and  savages  have  of  themselves.  No  one  with 
good  taste  or  education  will  boast  excessively  about  himself. 
If  he  does  so,  he  becomes  a  ludicrous  figure.     But  to  him  as 

302 


UNJUSTIFIABLE  CHAUVINISM  303 

the  one  sixty-seven  millionth  part  of  an  entire  people  any 
amount  of  boasting  and  self-praise  is  permissible. 

It  is  a  human  trait  to  believe  in  one's  own  virtues  and  in 
another's  vices;  consequently  we  call  only  the  patriotism  of 
other  countries  chauvinism.  Only  the  greatest  men  retain 
impartiality  enough  to  admit  that  there  is  also  chauvinism  at 
home.  Goethe  ridicules  the  "fatherland"  talk  of  the  Ger- 
mans, Chateaubriand  and  Taiue  that  of  the  French,  and 
Shakspere  and  Shaw  that  of  the  English.  Lessing  calls  pa- 
triotism a  "heroic  weakness,"  an  expression  which  probably 
gets  at  the  root  of  the  matter  best  of  all. 

Christ  and  Tolstoy  have  discarded  patriotism ;  as  a  matter 
of  fact  there  is  no  truly  great  man  who  has  ever  been  patriotic 
in  the  current  sense  of  the  word.  Not  even  great  statesmen 
like  Frederick  II  and  Napoleon,  who  surely  were  ready  to  die 
for  their  country,  were  patriotic  in  this  sense.  Frederick  II 
lived  and  thought  in  the  literature  of  his  enemies;  Napoleon 
was  perhaps  the  first  one  who,  beside  Goethe,  dreamed  of  the 
Europe  to  be.  Bismarck,  who  knew  better  than  any  one  else 
how  to  play  on  the  patriotic  passion  as  on  the  keys  of  a 
piano  and  whose  life-work  consisted  in  wisely  making  use  of 
such  feelings,  was  much  too  wise  to  yield  himself  up  to  such 
passions.  This  Brandenburgian  Bismarck,  who  loved  his 
home  as  no  one  else;  Bismarck,  the  junker,  more  wholly  de- 
voted to  his  family,  rank,  and  people  than  any  one  else; 
this  Bismarck,  who  grew  to  maturity  in  the  storms  of  1848, 
who  understood  the  necessity  for  national  unity  better  than 
any  one  else — this  man  never  uttered  a  patriotic  or  chauvin- 
istic word  of  the  caliber  that  is  now  heard  on  every  side. 

Not  even  his  principal  enemies  can  deny  that  Bismarck  was 
a  man  of  exceptional  intelligence.  Any  one  who  will  only 
superficially  study  his  life  will  recognize  that  excessive  patriot- 
ism is  less  a  vice  than  an  error  of  thought.  Bismarck's  life 
will  show  better  and  more  clearly  than  I  can  do  it  that  love  of 
one's  country  is  not  a  real  love,  but  a  means  for  agitation. 
Love  for  Prussia,  love  for  the  German  Empire,  and  love  for 


304  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

the  dream  of  a  national  state  of  all  Germans  were  all  jumbled 
together  in  his  man3'-sided  brain.  He  drew  upon  each  spe- 
cialized love  wherever  he  could  put  it  to  best  use. 

Many  will  say  that  this  was  permissible  to  a  statesman 
sure  of  his  ground,  who  wished  to  bring  about  a  realization  of 
his  plans  through  the  passions  of  others,  but  that  a  "subject" 
should  dutifully  have  only  the  kind  of  patriotism  which  may 
be  proper  at  the  time.  To  argue  this  point  is  useless.  When 
the  conception  of  "subjects"  disappeared,  the  duty  of  a  sub- 
missive love  likewise  disappeared.  Just  as  we  demand  liberty 
in  all  things,  so  we  must  also  be  free  in  our  affections.  Love 
may  be  blind,  but  only  after  it  has  chosen  with  seeing  eyes. 
If  it  is  condemned  to  blindness  before  choosing,  it  is  not  love, 
but  madness. 

2. — MASS    SUGGESTION 

§  111. — Mass-Feeling  Among  Animals 

Patriotism  grows  out  of  love  of  home,  the  family,  and  the 
social  instinct.  When  we  know  these  three  sources,  we  know 
its  essence.  But  if  our  knowledge  is  restricted  solely  to  this 
threefold  origin,  we  shall  never  know  its  full  greatness  and 
its  far-reaching  effects.  A  certain  excess  quality  seems  alwa3's 
to  be  associated  with  the  functioning  of  patriotism.  This 
tendency  "to  run  to  leaf"  can  be  explained  only  by  mass 
suggestion,  which,  like  a  tropical  sun,  always  fructifies  anew 
and  poisons  love  of  one's  country. 

It  is  a  peculiar  phenomenon,  when  several  animals  or  men 
undertake  to  perform  something  in  common,  that  this  very 
fact  of  acting  in  common  causes  a  change  in  the  action  of 
the  individual  units.  The  ancients  already  knew  this.  There 
is  the  well-known  story  of  the  legendary  king  who,  on  his 
death-bed,  had  a  bundle  of  twigs  brought  to  him.  He  tied 
them  together,  and  then  asked  his  sons  to  break  the  bundle 
in  two.  Not  one  of  them  could  accomplish  this.  He  loosened 
the  string,  and  with  his  feeble,  dying  hand  easily  broke  the  in- 


UNJUSTIFIABLE  CHAUVINISM  305 

dividual  twigs  one  after  another.  '  *  By  this  you  can  see  that  in 
union  there  is  strength, ' '  he  said. 

We  have  begun  to  appreciate  these  mass  effects.  We  know 
that  two  men  can  carrj'  more  than  twice  as  much  as  each  on« 
alone.  We  have  long  since  learned  from  physics  the  reason 
for  this.  AVe  know  why  a  large  ship  can  make  greater  speed 
than  a  small  one,  and  why  the  hundred  horse-power  of  an 
automobile,  concentrated  upon  one  point,  can  produce  a  more 
powerful  and  intensive  effect  than  a  hundred  individual 
horses.  With  these  facts  we  may  compare  the  fact  that  a 
mass  of  men  reacts  in  quite  a  different  fashion  from  an  in- 
dividual man,  and  usually  much  more  powerfully. 

We  know  that  the  same  thing  occurs  among  animals.  Every 
horseman  knows  that  his  horse  in  column  formation  can  per- 
form deeds  and  overcome  obstacles  that  alone  it  would  have 
failed  to  accomplish.  Every  huntsman  knows  that  a  pack  of 
hounds  is  more  courageous  than  an  individual  dog.  Forel 
states  that  among  ants  the  courage  of  the  individual  ant  in- 
creases in  direct  proportion  to  the  number  of  friends  and  com- 
panions, and  similarly  decreases  the  more  isolated  the  in- 
dividual ant  is.  As  proof  he  instances  that  fact  that  a 
worker-ant  among  its  fellows  will  undergo  a  tenfold  death, 
but  grows  timid  when  alone.  Even  within  twenty  steps  of 
the  nest  it  will  take  flight  before  a  much  weaker  ant.  He 
also  states  that  generally  the  inhabitants  of  a  populous 
ant-heap  are  much  braver  than  individual  ants  of  the  same 
species  from  a  very  small  community. 

Rouget  reports  similar  facts  among  wasps.  According  to 
him,  the  greater  their  number,  the  more  excitable  they  are. 
He  also  believes  that  the  sentries  which  wasps  post  here  and 
there  can  transmit  their  excitement  to  their  companions  in 
some  intensified  form.  In  this  way  only  can  we  explain  the 
frightful  intensity  which  an  enraged  hornets '-nest  sometimes 
assumes. 


306  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

§  112. — Mass  Feeling  Amo7ig  Men 

These  observations  among  animals  are  likewise  confirmed 
among  men.  The  reaction  of  an  individual  man  is  augmented 
in  an  extraordinary  way  by  the  feeling  of  mass.  We  can  see 
this  effect  in  the  case  of  public  speakers.  If  we  estimate  the 
intensity'-  with  which  a  speaker  addresses  an  assembly  at  unity, 
the  response  which  his  words  call  forth  may  be  ten  or  a  hun- 
dred times  as  great.  This  is  the  unique  effect  of  the  spoken 
word.  Nordau  aptly  points  out  that  often  speeches  that  had 
a  tremendous  effect  upon  an  audience  seem  very  commouj)]ace 
when  later  read  in  stenographic  report.  This  is  also  true  of 
the  theater.  A  play  which  seemed  rather  indifferent  on  read- 
ing, may,  when  produced,  have  an  unprecedented  success  or 
be  a  complete  failure.  Even  the  most  experienced  director 
rarely  dares  trust  his  judgment  before  the  first  performance. 

The  same  thing  is  shown  in  the  reports  of  latter-day  mir- 
acles. Some  one  in  a  crowd  sees  a  gleam  of  light  which  he 
interprets  as  the  Holy  Virgin,  and  promptly  the  entire  as- 
semblage sees  the  phenomenon  just  as  clearly.  Probably  no 
one  can  wholly  escape  such  mass  suggestion.  An  Indian 
jungle  tale,  whose  author,  unless  I  am  mistaken,  was  Kipling, 
is  very  characteristic.  Several  Europeans  are  sitting  together 
in  a  forest  toward  eventime.  An  old  Hindoo  magician  ar- 
rives with  his  son.  He  plants  a  bean,  and  to  all  appearance 
the  stalk  grows  endlessly  upward  toward  the  dark  sky.  The 
boy  climbs  up  it,  and  disappears  in  the  darkness.  The  old  man 
dances  a  wild  dance,  then  cuts  the  stalk,  which  collapses,  and 
at  the  feet  of  the  spectators  lies  the  crushed  body  of  the  boy, 
which  his  father  covers  with  a  mantle.  After  a  few  minutes 
father  and  son  take  leave  in  perfect  health.  Every  one  of 
those  present,  however,  is  firmly  convinced  that  he  has  ac- 
tually witnessed  the  horrible  scene  with  his  own  eyes.  This 
is  a  significant  example  of  mass  suggestion.  An  illusion  like 
this  would  never  succeed  if  the  performers  attempted  to  im- 
pose it  on  a  single  nerson. 


UNJUSTIFIABLE  CHAUVINISM  307 

Among  animals  this  mass  feeling  depends  upon  inherited 
instincts ;  among  men  in  part  surely  upon  acquired  suggestion. 
While  the  causes  have  not  as  yet  been  investigated  with  suffi- 
cient thoroughness,  it  is  nevertheless  comparatively  easy  to 
obtain  an  approximate  idea  of  the  origin  of  such  mass  sug- 
gestion. 

When  we  hear  an  incredible  report  for  the  first  time  we 
are  skeptical.  When  we  hear  it  repeated  a  second  time  or 
still  more  frequently  the  thought  begins  to  grow  in  us  that 
there  may  be  some  truth  in  it,  after  all.  Thus  by  the  simple 
fact  of  constant  repetition  our  belief  grows  stronger  and 
stronger.  An  anecdote,  was  once  published  in  ''Fliegende 
Blatter."  Some  one  meets  a  group  of  school-children,  and 
says  to  them,  "Go  to  the  Braugasse;  a  fish  is  taking  a  walk 
there."  In  the  next  street  he  meets  hurrying  servant-girls, 
and  in  reply  to  his  question  where  they  are  running  so  fast 
they  say,  "To  the  Braugasse;  a  fish  is  taking  a  walk  there." 
Then  he  meets  soldiers  and  students,  all  of  whom  are  hurry- 
ing to  the  Braugasse,  because  a  fish  is  taking  a  walk  there. 
Finally  he  says  to  himself,  "Confound  it  all,  I  fancy  I  had 
better  take  a  look  in  at  the  Braugasse ;  maybe  a  fish  is  really 
taking  a  walk  there." 

There  is  a  serious  substratum  in  this  anecdote.  We  may 
express  an  opinion  under  external  compulsion,  knowing  that 
it  is  untrue.  Then  every  one  about  us,  perhaps  under  the 
same  external  compulsion,  repeats  it.  Finally  we  come  to  a 
point  where  we  are  mure  and  more  firmly  convinced  of  the 
correctness  of  the  opinion,  though  originally  we  had  very 
little  faith  in  it. 

Intercommunication  between  people  takes  place  not  only  by 
means  of  words,  but  also  through  gestures.  In  this  way 
instinctive  gestures  alone,  rightly  interpreted,  may  call  forth 
a  certain  feeling  in  us  or  accentuate  one  already  pre.sent. 

This  is  most  clearly  seen  when  a  speaker  addresses  a  large 
assembly.  At  his  first  words  a  small  part  of  the  speaker's 
excitement  is  communicated  to  each  one  of  his  auditors.     Let 


308  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

# 
us  say  that  it  is  on  the  average  a  one  one-hundredth  part. 

If  the  audience  consists  of  a  thousand  persons,  there  will  be 
present  in  the  assembly  a  total  amount  of  excitement  ten  times 
that  of  the  speaker.  It  will  be  manifested  in  increased  at- 
tention and  visible  tension,  and  perhaps  ultimately  in  applause. 
The  sum-total  of  these  sudden  activities  will  bring  about  a 
certain  excitement,  which  in  its  turn  reacts  upon  each  indi- 
vidual auditor,  in  whom  it  calls  forth  greater  excitement. 
The  greatest  effect  is  upon  the  speaker  himself,  who  is  car- 
ried away  by  the  sight  of  his  emotion-swept  crowd.  A  direct 
speech,  even  a  poorly  prepared  or  improvised  speech,  is  usually 
more  effective  than  the  most  carefully  thought-out  speech  read 
from  manuscript,  because  the  former  is  modified  by  the  direct 
contact  between  speaker  and  audience.  This  reflex  action  is 
the  reason  why  so  many  inexperienced  speakers  lose  the 
thread  of  their  discourse  by  the  very  success  of  their  words. 
The  effect  which  they  produce  is  reflected  back  upon  them  so 
powerfully  that  it  overwhelms  them,  as  it  were.  If,  however, 
a  speaker  can  control  his  own  emotion,  and  cause  it  to  react 
upon  the  crowd,  there  must  inevitably  arise  a  series  of  recipro- 
cal shocks,  resembling  electrical  shocks,  between  him  and  his 
auditors,  causing  both  to  transcend  their  customary  moral 
equilibrium  at  certain  moments.^ 

3. — THE  CONDITIONS  AND  CONSEQUENCES  OF   CHAUVINISM 

§  113. — There  is  no  Demarcation  between  Patriotism  and 
Chauvinism 

"Where  is  the  line  of  demarcation  between  patriotism  and 
chauvinism?  In  all  soberness,  I  do  not  believe  there  is  any 
real  line  of  demarcation.  If  chauvinism  is  only  patriotism  in 
excess,  how  can  there  be  such  a  line  ?  It  is  always  a  perilous 
matter  to  draw  a  line  between  too  much  and  too  little.  Ac- 
cording to  ordinary  usage,  chauvinism  is  said  to  be  perverted 

i.The  last  sentence  is  a  quotation,  I  believe  from  an  English  author, 
but  1  have  lost  the  source. 


UNJUSTIFIABLE  CHAUVINISM  309 

patriotism;  but  what  does  this  mean?  If  I  am  permitted 
to  discuss  the  question  of  love  of  one's  country,  if  this  love  is 
to  be  subordinated  to  my  other  perceptions  of  good  and  evil, 
patriotism  loses  the  uniqueness  which  is  said  to  be  its  dis- 
tinguishing feature.  It  is  merely  a  love  like  any  other  love. 
If  I  am  to  reject  chauvinism,  I  must  have  the  right  to  regard 
as  objectionable  that  which  other  people  call  patriotism,  for 
no  one  ever  calls  himself  a  chauvinist. 

If,  indeed,  there  is  a  difference  between  chauvinists  and  pa- 
triots, it  is  this:  a  chauvinist  loves  his  country  in  all  cir- 
cumstances, whether  it  is  good  or  bad.  He  regards  this  love 
as  the  greatest  thing  in  life,  and,  if  he  is  a  courageous  and 
moral  man,  he  serves  his  country  with  every  means  at  his  dis- 
posal. A  patriot,  on  the  contrary,  is  he  who  loves  and  sup- 
ports whatever  is  good  in  his  fatherland,  as  in  everything  else, 
and  who  hates  and  opposes  whatever  is  bad.  By  reason  of  his 
instincts,  habits,  and  retiections  he  has  come  to  the  conclusion 
that  for  him  personally  it  is  most  advantageous  and  best  to 
live  in  that  particular  country  and  to  serve  it  according  to  the 
best  of  his  powers  and  abilities. 

This  latter  type  of  man  may  be  intensely  and  passionately 
devoted  to  his  country ;  but  he  will  not  let  his  love  carry  him 
away  to  the  extent  of  committing  a  wrong,  for  the  very  reason 
that  he  respects  himself  and  his  country.  ]\Ien  of  this  type, 
however,  are  not  as  a  rule  called  patriots. 

The  other  type  of  man,  who  is  ready  to  commit  wrong  for 
his  country,  may  act,  of  course,  according  to  ethical  prin- 
ciples, provided  his  ethical  principles  are  such  as  to  permit 
him  to  commit  wrongs,  l^sually  he  does  not  act  in  accord- 
ance with  ethical  principles,  and  it  is  in  no  way  necessary 
for  him  to  love  his  country,  and  often  he  does  not  love  it.  He 
is  either  too  weak  or  too  cowardly  to  withstand  mass  sugges- 
tion. Often  his  cowardice  goes  so  far  that  without  for  a  mo- 
ment intending  to  do  so  he  gives  his  life  for  his  countrj'. 
Such  men  call  themselves  patriots,  and  their  compatriots  do 
so  likewise 


310  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

In  what  follows  I  call  them  chauvinists  and  patriots.  It  is 
now  necessary  to  explain  how  men  may  become  chauvinists. 
There  are  two  reasons. 

The  first  is  the  inability  to  hold  out  against  mass  suggestion. 
Its  influence  in  heightening  the  feelings  of  a  person  is  more 
powerful  in  the  case  of  patriotism  than  in  any  other  field. 
By  its  very  nature  patriotism  can  be  built  up  only  on  this 
feeling  of  number. 

Furthermore,  every  weakling  seeks  support  from  others,  and 
feels  himself  strong  only  when  he  acts  in  conjunction  with 
others.  It  is  only  the  truly  strong  man  who  is  strongest  alone. 
In  general  all  these  weaklings  have  no  real  personal  civiliza- 
tion value;  they  have  no  feeling  of  solidarity  in  civilization. 
Whoever  is  without  intelligence  cannot  have  any  intellectual 
kin.  Therefore,  in  order  to  be  able  to  attach  themselves  to 
anything,  these  people  will  have  to  seek  some  external  bond. 
And  what  could  be  more  adapted  for  this  than  nationalism? 
Every  blockhead  feels  himself  uplifted  when,  with  several 
dozen  millions  of  other  blockheads,  he  can  form  a  majority. 
Thus  in  the  course  of  time  this  need  for  attachment  on  the 
part  of  several  dozen  millions  becomes  an  unconquerable  force. 

Ein  Vorzug  bleibt  uns  ewig  unverloren, 

Mann  nennt  ibn  beute  Nationalitiit! 

Das  heiszt,  dasz  "irgendwo"  der  Menscb  geboren, 

Was  Freilich  sieh  von  selbst  verstebt. — Gnllparzer.^ 

The  less  character  there  is  in  a  nation,  the  greater,  naturally, 
is  such  a  nation's  patriotism.  Never  did  the  civis  Romanus 
sum  sound  more  proudly  than  during  the  decadence  of  the 
Roman  Empire. 

This  is  the  positive  condition  of  chauvinism;  negative  con- 
ditions are  chiefly  hatred  and  envy  for  what  is  foreign.  The 
most  intense  love  of  one's  country,  filling  a  human  being  so 

1  (Roughly:  "One  advantage  we  can  never  lose;  it  is  to-day  called 
nationality.  That  is  to  say,  that  'somewhere'  a  man  was  born,  which 
after  all  is  something  obvious.") 


UNJUSTIFIABLE  CHAUVINISM  311 

completely  that  there  is  room  for  nothing  else,  will  remain 
clean,  provided  there  is  no  hatred  toward  other  nations  mixed 
with  it. 

This  inability  to  overcome  with  one's  intelligence  the  mass 
suggestion  of  one's  people  or  with  one's  character  the  hatred 
toward  the  enemy — these  two  factors  stamp  a  man  as  a  false 
patriot,  or  as  a  chauvinist. 

§  114. — War  as  a  Necessary  Cofidition 

War  is  the  solvent,  and  at  the  same  time  the  sounding-board. 
For  without  war  no  one  would  be  interested  in  patriotism  or 
chauvinism.  The  man  who  loved  his  country  would  have 
an  additional  form  of  happiness,  but  if  a  man  did  not  love  it, 
no  one  would  disturb  him.  The  merchant  and  manufacturer 
of  their  own  accord  try  to  increase  their  trade  and  sales,  and 
thus  add  to  the  national  welfare.  The  scientists  and  artist 
do  their  best  by  reason  of  some  power  within  them,  and  thus 
add  to  national  civilization.  They  do  not  require  a  special 
stimulus. 

When  money  is  to  be  appropriated  for  a  school,  theater, 
harbor,  or  canal,  certain  (juestions  are  considered,  or  at  least 
should  be  considered,  such  as  whether  the  costs  will  be  pro- 
portionate to  the  increased  comfort,  wealth,  civic  improve- 
ment, or  any  other  advantage  that  may  ensue.  In  accordance 
with  this  the  decision  is  made;  no  patriotism  is  required.  In 
short,  patriotism  does  not  play  the  slightest  practical  role  in 
any  of  the  activities  of  peace. 

But  whenever  the  (jucstion  is  one  of  an  army  increase,  of 
new  cannons,  or  of  new  battle-ships,  we  have  to  appeal  to 
patriotism,  because  such  armaments  are  per  se  unproductive, 
and  demand  deprivations  on  our  part.  Therefore  even  dur- 
ing peace  patriotism  has  to  be  stirred  up  by  the  threat  of 
possible  war.  As  a  rule  the  glowing  spark  is  just  barely  kept 
alive.  Were  it  to  fiare  up  too  brightly,  it  might  disturb  the 
activities  of  the  diplomats,  and  governments  are  almost  as 
proud  of  them  as  they  are  of  the  deeds  of  warlike  valor. 


312  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

AVhen  war  has  once  begun,  such  considerations  are  superflu- 
ous, for  war  generally  puts  many  deprivations  upon  a  popula- 
tion both  in  respect  to  mental  aiid  material  necessaries  of  life. 
Consequently,  patriotism  must  be  augmented,  for  only  the 
highest  patriotic  tension  can  bring  about  long-continued  and 
voluntary  self-denial  in  a  people. 

This  augmentation  automatically  comes  into  being  through 
the  sudden  common  activity  of  a  people,  which  in  its  turn 
calls  forth  an  increased  sense  of  action ;  this  again  conditions 
an  increased  mass  feeling.  Then,  too,  the  uncertainty'  and 
the  fear  with  which  the  possible  horrors  of  war  are  viewed 
brings  about  a  closer  association  of  all  those  who  are  weak. 

Both  these  feelings  are  played  upon  and  artificially  stimu- 
lated. A  closer  study  of  the  press  shows  that  the  wire-pullers 
have  an  empiric  understanding  of  the  instincts  of  the  crowd. 
Probably  few  people,  except  perhaps  the  late  Mr.  Barnum, 
would  envy  them  this  understanding.  The  whole  performance 
essentially  amounts  to  this.  Either  there  is  exaggeration  of 
things  favorable  to  one's  own  country  or  of  those  favorable 
to  the  opponent.  In  the  one  case  the  desire  is  to  stimulate 
the  mass  feeling  by  the  feeling  of  activity ;  in  the  other  to  in- 
crease the  need  for  cohesion. 

§  115. — Self -Praise  and  Fear 

In  time  of  war  people  apparently  can  put  up  with  any 
amount  of  self-praise.  We  have  taunted  the  French  for  a  long 
time  because  they  believed  that  they  marched  a  la  tcte  de  la 
civilization :  but  the  fact  remains  that  for  a  hundred  years  all 
Europe  followed  the  French  lead,  one  might  say  almost  slav- 
ishly followed  it.  To-day  we  calmly  accept  statements  like 
the  following,  "Germany  is  the  most  perfect  thing  ever  created 
by  history." — Lasson>     W.  Rein-  calls  it  the  "heart,"  and 

1  Lasson,  "Zwei  Briefe  an  die  hollandische  Zeitschrift"  "De  Amster- 
damer"   ("Two  Letters  to  the  Dutch  Journal  'De  Amsterdamer.' ") 

2  \V.  Re'n  in  "Der  Tajj"'  ("'The  Day"),  August  18.  This  furthermore 
is  a  parody  of  Iloiderlin,  who  once  in  an  entirely  different  sense  said  that 
"Germany  was  the  nations'  sacred  heart." 


unjustifiablp:  chauvinism  313 

G.  Hauptmann/  "the  soul  of  Europe."  According  to  R.  En- 
ken,-  Germany  is  "complete  civilization,"  in  contrast  with 
the  French  formal  and  the  English  material  civilization.  Ac- 
cording to  Kohler,''  all  foreign  countries  owe  "the  best  of  their 
culture"  to  Germany.  Among  others  there  is  an  over-abun- 
dance of  epithet.  Lassou,*  for  example,  says,  "Sincerity  and 
idealistic  depth  are  peculiarly  German  qualities,  and  all  really 
vital  feeling  for  nature  is  German.  Peculiarly  German,  too, 
is  truth  and  fidelity,  the  overcoming  of  difficulties  and  love  of 
work,  thought  and  conscience,  will,  scientific  impulse,  and  jus- 
tice." With  similar  pleonasm  R.  Dehmel ''  declares  "Ger- 
many is  more  humane,  has  better  discipine,  morals,  intellect, 
soul,  and  imagination." 

Statements  like  these  could  be  found  daily  in  the  newspa- 
pers during  1914.  Usually  they  were  much  worse.  The 
passages  above  quoted  are  those  of  well-known  personalities; 
we  do  not  give  any  of  those  of  journalists,  which  by  reason 
of  their  anonymity  were  wholly  unrestrained. 

This  self-praise  was  accentuated  by  calumniation  of  the 
opponent.  It  is  comprehensible  that  Eukcn  and  his  asso- 
ciates should  speak  of  Russia's  brutal  despotism,  and  make 
the  people  responsible  for  a  government  which  they  formerly 
highly  regarded.  Opinions  like  these  were  prevalent  even 
before  the  war.  It  is  incomprehensible,  however,  when  R. 
Dehmel  calls  it  a  barbarous  state  par  excellence  or  a  mon 
strosity  of  primitive  instincts  and  imported  refinements.  A 
poet  should  at  least  respect  creative  literature  sufficiently  not 
to  call  barbarous  a  nation  which  has  produced  a  trinity  like 

1  G.  Hauptmann,  "An  meine  amerikanischen  Freunde  ("To  my  Ameri- 
can Friends"),  Berliner  "Tageblatt,"  Oct.  21. 

-  R.  Euken,  "Erster  Vortrag  in  der  Crania"  ("First  Discourse  in  tlio 
Urania") . 

3  Kohler,  Berliner  "Tageblatt,"  Sept.  18,  1914. 

4  Lasson,  "Fiinfte  Rede  in  schwercr  Zeit"  ("Fifth  Address  in  Serious 
Times"),  according  to  the  Berliner  "Tageblatt,"  September  26,  1914. 

"^Dehmel,  "Brief  an  meine  Kinder"  ("Letter  to  my  Children"),  Ber- 
liner "Tageblatt,"  October  10,  1014. 


314  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

Lermontov,  Dostoievsky,  and  Tolstoy.  Besides,  R.  Dehmel  is 
personally  acquainted  with  a  sutificient  number  of  Russians 
whom  he  knows  to  be  men  of  unprecedented  delicacy  and  fine- 
ness of  feeling.  Why,  then,  all  this  talk  about  a  "monstros- 
ity"? 

Most  of  them  were  more  friendly  toward  France,  but  the 
half-pitying  smile  with  which  men  like  Carl  Hauptmann, 
Roethe,  and  Richard  Dehmel  tried  to  dispose  of  the  poor 
Gauls  was  hardly  dignified.  Wholly  unworthy  of  German 
liberality  of  thought  were  the  insults  heaped  upon  the  Japan- 
ese, Serbians,  and  Belgians.  I  omit  further  reference  to  them 
because  every  reader,  if  he  has  not  unfortunately  repeated 
them  himself,  has,  at  any  rate,  heard  them  a  dozen  times  over. 

The  things  said  of  England  are  almost  unbelievable.  Har- 
nack  ^  called  the  English  traitors  to  civilization ;  Haeckel,^  said 
they  were  the  greatest  criminals  in  the  history  of  the  world; 
Gustav  Roethe  said  the  Englishman  was  the  great  cold  hypo- 
crite. England's  actions  were  motivated,  according  to  Eukeu, 
by  a  "repulsive  frivolity"  and,  according  to  C.  Hauptmann, 
by  "a  shopkeeper's  envy,"  and  so  on,  almost  ad  injimtum. 
Here,  too,  Richard  Dehmel  achieved  the  masterpiece.  In  addi- 
tion to  calling  the  English  a  "wild  beast,"  he  did  not  hesitate 
to  declare  that  Shakspere  and  Byron  "were  cynics  when  you 
really  fundamentally  analyzed  them." 

If  such  statements  could  come  from  men  of  letters  and 
thinkers,  it  is  not  difficult  to  imagine  how  far  Philistines  and 
journalists  went.  As  far  as  I  can  judge  among  the  daily  news- 
papers, the  prize  goes  to  the  "Deutsche  Tageszeitung"; 
among  other  journals  "Simplizissimus"  and  "Jugend"^  are 
close  competitors. 

The  daily  reading  of  things  like  these  results  inevitably  in 

1  Harnaok,  Rede  im  Berliner  Rathaiis  am  11  August,  1014~  «"f^  Brief 
rom  10  September  ("Speech  in  the  Berlin  city  hall  on  August  11,  and 
Letter  of  September  10,  1914"). 

2  Haeckel,   England's  "Blutsclnild"    ("Entrland's  Blood-guilt"). 

3  Two  well-known  Munich  humorous  weeklies. — Translator. 


UNJUSTIFIABLE  CHAUVINISM  315 

that  a  man  considers  his  own  people  the  best,  and  that  its  de- 
fense will  not  only  further  his  own  interests,  but  also  those 
of  mankind  at  large.  In  this  way  war  and  chauvinism  re- 
ciprocally augment  each  other.  Here  is  the  reason  for  the 
declaration  of  3016  high-school  teachers,^  that  "the  welfare  of 
the  civilization  of  all  Europe  depended,  upon  a  German  vic- 
tory," or  for  Carl  Hauptmann's^  statement  that  "only  by 
the  complete  victory  of  German  arms  can  the  independence  of 
Europe  be  established."  Juliusburger  ^  aptly  says,  and  men 
like  Haeckel  and  Ostwald  support  this,  "It  is  Germany's  his- 
toric task  to  organize  Europe  under  its  leadership."** 

The  one-sided  reports  concerning  the  bravery  of  our  own 
troops  and  the  cowardice  of  the  enemy  belong  to  the  same  cate- 
gory. Here,  too,  belongs  the  more  or  less  skilful  attempt  of 
both  sides  to  put  the  blame  for  the  war  upon  the  other  side. 
This  has  been  characteristic  of  all  wars.  A  thousand  other 
things  also  belong  here;  used  all  together  they  condition  the 
horrible  campaign  of  calumniation,  which,  unfortunately,  al- 
ways runs  parallel  with  the  campaign  of  arms. 

This  boasting  and  assumption  of  a  terrifying  aspect  is  an  an- 
cient animal  heritage.  The  lion  roars  before  he  attacks,  the 
elephant  tramples  down  the  ground  while  awaiting  the  enemy, 
the  serpent  distends  itself  and  hisses ;  the  Trojans  made  long 
speeches,  full  of  self-praise  and  belittlement  of  the  enemy. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  attempt  to  stimulate  patriotism  by 
exaggerating  the  danger  is  purely  human.  This  attempt  has 
a  rational  purpose  only  when  its  aim  is  to  cause  a  half-way 
intelligent  citizenry,  apparently  of  their  own  free  will,  to  sub- 

1  Erklanmg  der  Hochschullehrer  des  Deutsohen  Reichs"  ("Declara- 
tion of  the  High-school  Teachers  of  the  (Jerman  Empire"),  October  10, 
1914. 

2  C.  Hauptmann,  *'G«^gen  Unwahrheit"  ("Against  Untruth"),  "Tiigliche 
Rundschau,"  August  26,  1914. 

3  Otto  Juliusluirger,  "Kuropa  untor  Doutscher  Fiihrung"  ("Europe 
under  Oerman  Leadership").  "Monistisches  Jahrhundert"  ("Monistic 
Century"),  November  13,  1914,  p   657. 

•*  Cf.  §  16  in  regard  to  the  germ  of  trutli  in  this  unjustifiable  assertion. 


316  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

scribe  money,  endure  privations,  or  furnish  soldiers.  Voli- 
tion does  not  exist  in  the  animal  kingdom. 

This  method  was  employed  chietiy  by  the  world-powers. 
In  England  the  Zeppelins  were  used  for  this  purpose,  and 
entire  sections  of  cities  were  darkened.  In  general  all  the 
clamor  about  the  cruelty  and  barbarity  of  the  Germans  was 
raised  for  this  purpose.  In  Germany  it  was  possible  to  em- 
ploy this  principle  only  in  the  early  days  of  the  war,  be- 
cause later  the  military  situation  appeared  relatively  too  favor- 
able, or  was  made  to  appear  so.  But  at  first  the  attempt  was 
made  to  spread  fear  and  trembling  in  our  own  camp  by  all 
manner  and  means  of  wild  reports.  The  figures  ' '  four  against 
one"  were  hammered  into  us  by  way  of  suggestion,  just  as 
though  there  were  no  Austria  or  later  Turkey  and  Bulgaria. 
Even  Adolf  von  Harnack  seems  to  have  succumbed  to  this  sug- 
gestion, for  on  September  10,  1914,  he  wrote,  quite  contrary 
to  facts,  in  order  to  excuse  the  invasion  of  Belgium,  that, 
"one  hundred  and  ninety  millions  had  attacked  sixty-eight 
millions."  The  Austrians  were  entirely  left  out  of  his  calcu- 
lations, despite  the  fact  that  they  nominally  were  the  main 
issue.  The  enemy  and  his  might  were  exaggerated,  especially 
in  their  more  loathsome  aspects.  His  spies  were  said  to  be 
omnipresent.  They  were  blowing  up  our  tunnels  and  bomb- 
ing our  cities  even  far  in  the  interior  of  the  country.  "  French 
physicians  were  poisoning  our  wells,  and  huge  masses  of  gold 
were  being  shipped  through  Germany. 

It  is  not  immaterial  whether  such  senseless  stories  are  be- 
lieved or  not.  The  fact  remains  that  the  story  about  the  pois- 
oned wells  was  for  the  time  being  believed  by  at  least  sevent}^- 
nine  million  men,  assuming  that  there  are  approximately 
eighty  million  Germans  in  Germany  and  Austria. 

§  116. — The  Consequences  of  Chauvinism 

The  form  of  suggestion  described  in  the  preceding  para- 
graphs was  everj^'here  successful.  The  preparations  for  the 
War  of  1914  had  been  more  thorough  than  those  for  anv  other 


UNJUSTIFIABLE  CHAUVINISM  317 

war  hitherto.  Patriotism  rose  to  unmeasured  heights.  There 
was  also  another  result,  an  unintended  one,  let  us  hope.  The 
hatred  of  nations  simultaneously  rose  to  unmeasured  heights. 
The  saddest  part  of  this  is  that  the  suggestion  will  disappear, 
but  the  hatred  remain. 

This  wallowing  chauvinism  concentrates  every  human  ca- 
pacity for  love  upon  one's  self  and  one's  own  country;  for 
others  only  hatred  remains.  There  is  no  room  for 
any  other  potentiality  of  the  human  soul  beside  these  two 
passions.  The  results  cannot  be  described  in  detail.  Every 
one  who  will  re-read  the  newspapers  of  the  first  year  of  the  war 
can  for  himself  find  a  fullness  of  melancholy  facts.  A  few  ar- 
bitrarily selected  instances  will  show  what  is  meant. 

Reasoning  power  broke  down  completely.  Everything 
was  believed.  No  one  seemed  to  notice  that  the  passage  of 
an  automobile  through  closed  borders  was  impossible,  or  that 
it  was  impossible  to  transport  the  weight  of  the  sums  men- 
tioned in  an  automobile.  The  authorities,  at  least  indirectly, 
unfortunately  aided  in  the  building  up  of  such  legends. 
There  was  no  timely  official  denial  of  the  rumors  of  the  arrest 
of  French  physicians  who  were  said  to  have  been  caught  in 
the  act  of  poisoning  wells,  or  of  the  shooting  of  the  innkeeper 
Nikolai.  Despite  the  censorship,  the  demonstrably  false  re- 
ports about  gouged-out  eyes,  chopped-otf  hands,  a.ssassinated 
gamekeepers,  etc.,  were  allowed  to  circulate  through  the  press, 
and  their  success  was  unexampled.  Gradually  no  rumor  was 
absurd  enough  not  to  find  believers.  This  paroxysm  of  denial 
of  the  intelligence  seized  German  science  also,  where  surely 
there  should  have  been  the  habit  of  exact  investigation  of 
truth.  In  the  proclamation  by  the  German  savants  to  the 
world  of  culture,  the  statement,  "it  is  not  true,"  is  repeated 
seven  times.  And  this  document  is  signed  by  thirty-five 
scientists,  despite  the  fact  that  in  each  of  the  seven  cases  the 
question  involved  is  one  which  by  its  very  nature  makes  it  im- 
possible to  give  a  categorical  judgment  concerning  its  truth  or 
falsity. 


318  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

That  there  is  no  room  for  ethics  in  war  is  evident  per  se. 
Yet  the  chauvinist  tries  to  lay  claim  to  it  for  himself  and  his 
side,  entirely  without  reason,  entirely  d  tout  prix.  A  charac- 
teristic article  is  one  by  Paul  Ernst. ^  It  deals  with  the 
question,  "whether  Yorck's  action  in  the  Convention  of  Tau- 
roggen  was  unethical  and  whether  he  committed  treason  to- 
ward his  confederates."  Paul  Ernst's  conclusions  are  as  fol- 
lows. Yorck  was  a  German,  a  pious,  moral  German,  stand- 
ing firmly  on  the  foundation  of  Kant 's  ethics.  Such  Germans 
commit  only  ethical  acts,  and  consequently  his  treason  toward 
his  king  and  his  confederates  was  an  ethical  act.  Verbatim 
Paul  Ernst  writes,  *'A  Southerner,  even  a  Frenchman,  can- 
not understand  the  conflict;  Yorck,  the  man  of  iron  and  of 
stern,  inflexible  honor  was  permitted  to  take  this  step.  It  is  to 
his  personality  we  owe  the  fact  that  at  the  apex  of  our  na- 
tional liberation  there  is  not  an  iniquity,  but  a  great,  heroic 
sacrifice."  The  deed,  consequently,  was  bad  in  itself,  and 
would  have  been  if  a  Southerner  or  a  Frenchman  had  com- 
mitted it,  but  done  by  a  German,  it  was  heroic.  I  hope  the 
time  will  soon  come  when  Germans,  even  Paul  Ernst  himself, 
will  look  back  upon  such  times  with  deep  shame.  For  a 
chauvinism  under  the  cloak  of  philosophical  considerations  is 
doubtless  the  most  dangerous  of  all,  because  it  is  most  likely  to 
lead  innocent  persons  astray.  They  do  not  even  notice  the 
cloven  hoof. 

Certain  German  daily  newspapers  have  demanded  that 
prisoners  and  pigs  should  be  fed  together.  Others  have  com- 
mented on  the  report  of  our  general  headquarters  that  "numer- 
ous German  sailors  were  rescued  by  the  English,"  that  rescue 
by  this  English  rift'-ralf  should  be  forbidden.  This  is  chau- 
vinistic immorality  of  the  grossest  and  crudest  kind.  If  a 
person  is  not  nauseated  by  it  on  his  own  accord,  further  argu- 
ment is  useless.  ' 

Unfortunately,  there  are  to-day  still  very  few  with  whom 
argument  would  be  worth  while.     Not  long  ago  one  of  our 

1  Paul  Ernst  in  "Der  Tag"   ("The  Day"),  March  25,  1915. 


UNJUSTIFIABLE  CHAUVINISM  319 

most  highly  educated  military  men  asked  me  whether  it  might 
not  be  possible  to  hurl  bombs  loaded  with  cholera  germs  or 
plague  bacilli  behind  the  lines  of  the  enemy.  I  suppress  his 
name  on  account  of  his  great  services,  and  also  because,  after 
peace  is  reestablished,  he  will  probably  regret  his  question. 
When  I  told  him  that  this  seemed  rather  purposeless  and 
hardly  humane,  he  replied,  with  a  contemptuous  wave  of  the 
hand,  that  humanity  had  nothing  to  do  with  this  war;  that 
Germany  had  full  license  for  whatever  it  wished  to  do. 

Unfortunately,  millions  of  people  think  like  this  particular 
man  of  high  achievement ;  only,  usually,  the^^  are  much  worse. 
For  instance,  the  chief  of  the  medical  staff  at  Graudenz  told 
me  that  he  had  often  considered  whether  it  might  not  be  pos- 
sible to  steal  through  the  Kussian  lines  and  inoculate  the 
Russians  with  living  bacteria.  He  held  that  the  employment 
of  any  means  was  justifiable  against  such  vermin.  Degener- 
ates like  these  no  longer  see  in  the  enemy  human  beings  like 
themselves;  or,  more  correctl}',  they  see  in  him  a  reflection  of 
themselves — that  is,  only  an  animal.  To  them  hatred  has 
become  a  religion.  It  is  a  hatred  without  reflection,  without 
meaning  or  reason,  without  justification. 

In  Lissauer's  "Chant  of  Hate  against  England,"  this 
absurd  person  does  not  even  try  to  tell  us  why  he  hates  Eng- 
land. The  entire  so-called  chant  consists  of  a  reiterated,  shrill 
protestation  that  he  hates  England,  and  when  we  have  read 
to  the  end  of  the  verse,  we  might  feel  inclined  to  ask  the 
author,  "And  now  tell  us,  why  do  you  really  hate  England?" 
Lissauer  himself  once  correctly  remarked  that  his  verses  should 
not  be  spoken,  but  hissed.  Admirable  self-criticism!  The 
breed  of  serpents  and  vipers  has  always  existed,  but  hardly 
any  one  would  have  believed  that  so  many  of  them  also  under- 
stood German.  Julius  Florus,^  the  Roman  historian,  reports 
that  the  ancient  Germans  were  in  the  habit  of  tearing  the 
tongue  of  the  mouths  of  such  people  with  the  words,  "to  the 

1  Julius  Florus,  Tandem,  vipera,  sibitare  desiste  (Epitome  rerum 
romanorum,  lib.  IV.  cup.  XII. ). 


320  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

end  that  the  poisonous  serpent  may  cease  to  hiss. ' '  At  present 
our  measures  are  milder.  But  let  us  hasten  to  forget  as  soon 
as  possible  that  such  a  song  was  ever  popular  in  German,  or 
that  words  like  "Hiddekk"^  and  "Gott  strafe  England"  ^^ 
("God  punish  England'')  had  currency. 

In  antiquity  foreign  languages  were  unknown,  and  with 
the  best  will  in  the  world  it  was  impossible  to  understand  the 
foreigner.  Consequently  it  was  only  natural  that  the  for- 
eigner should  come  to  be  looked  upon  as  a  barbarian ;  that  is, 
one  speaking  a  strange  language.  No  contemptuous  secondary 
signification  was  originally  associated  with  this  word  before 
the  time  of  the  Persian  "Wars.  Plato  still  writes,  "Great  also 
are  the  races  of  barbarians,"  but  to  Aristotle^  it  already 
seems  self-evident  that  the  Greeks  are  the  superiors  of  the 
barbarians.  At  the  present  time  the  intellectual  life  of  a 
foreign  nation  is  almost  as  accessible  to  every  one  as  is  that  of 
his  own  country,  and  to-day  the  mania  of  calling  "foreigners" 
barbarians  is  merely  a  sign  of  defective  education. 

"When  the  ordinary  citizen  over  his  beer  boasts  with  booming 
voice  that  we  are  the  most  moral,  bravest,  most  chivalrous, 
most  intelligent,  in  short  the  best  people  in  every  respect,  we 
can  let  that  pass,  with  the  assumption  that  his  circle  of  vision 
does  not  extend  beyond  the  walls  of  his  beer-house.  The  case, 
however,  is  different  when  a  man  like  Richard  Dehmel  declares 
that  only  Germans  have  a  true  title  to  world-dominion,  quite 
forgetting  that  he,  too,  once  held  the  belief  that  the  world's 
ultimate  purpose  was  not  that  of  being  dominated ;  or  again, 

1  According  to  the  ordinary  interpretation,  H.  1.  D.  D.  E.  K.  K.  is  said 
to  mean:  "Haupisache  ist,  dasz  die  Englimder  Keile  kriegen"  ("The 
important  thing  is  that  the  English  get  a  drubbing."  In  the  pro-entente 
circles  of  German  Switzerland  it  was  translated  by.  ''Hauptsache  ist  dasz 
Deutschland  englische  Keile  kriegt"  ("The  important  thing  is  that  Ger- 
many get  an  English  drubbing"). 

-It  is  said  that  the  English  change  this  to  "Gott  rerzeihc  Deutsch- 
land"  ("God  forgive  Germany"). 

3  Aristotle,  "Politica,"  1-2.  Cf.  also  Eoth,  "Uber  Sinn  und  Gebrauch 
des  Wortes  Barbar"  ("On  the  Meaning  and  Use  of  the  Word  Bar- 
barian") :   Nuremburg,  1843. 


UNJUSTIFIABLE  CHAUVINISM  321 

when  a  man  like  Cohen  ^  states  that  only  Germans  can  be 
philosophers,  quite  forgetting  how  much  Kant  owes  to  Berke- 
ley, merely  to  give  an  example  which  may  interest  Cohen.  It 
is  in  cases  like  these  that  we  must  confess,  alas  I  that  chauvin- 
ism has  done  its  crudest  work.  It  has  succeeded  in  reducing 
minds,  noble  and  liberal  in  themselves,  almost  to  the  level  of 
those  who,  except  for  their  mug  of  beer,  know  nothing  else 
of  the  world. 

4.--TnE   ANTITHESIS   BETWEEN    CR'ILIZATION    AND    CHAUVINISM 

§  117. — Civilization  as  an  Organism 

What  has  been  said  so  far  touches  only  certain  individual 
cases.  They  illustrate  how  injurious  and  hostile  to  civiliza- 
tion the  tendency  of  a  chauvinistic  point  of  view  is.  They 
may  not  be  convincing,  because  they  may  possibly  be  merely 
exceptional  instances.  But  it  can  easily  be  shown  that  civiliza- 
tion and  chauvinism,  we  may  even  say  civilization  and  patriot- 
ism, are  in  and  of  themselves  incompatible  antitheses. 

There  is  doubtless,  as  will  be  shown  in  the  next  chapter,  a 
national  civilization  which  must  be  preserved.  Such  a  civil- 
ization, however,  is  possible  only  when  we  subordinate  our 
national  feeling  to  the  ideal  of  civilization  as  a  whole,  but  not 
when  we  reverse  the  order. 

Nietzsche  ^  once  said  that  war  made  the  victor  stupid  and 
the  vanquished  barbarous.  This  probably  merely  means  that 
war  destroys  civilization,  for  Nietzsche  does  not  indicate  why 
in  the  one  instance  intellectual  civilization,  and  in  the  other 
that  of  the  feelings,  should  suffer.  This  voluntary  division 
seems  doubly  odd  in  the  ease  of  Nietzsche,  who  more  firmly 
than  any  one  else  clung  to  the  belief  in  the  possibility  and 
necessity  of  a  common  civilization  in  the  sense  which  obtained 

1  Cohen,  "Das  Eigentiimliche  dea  deutschen  Geiste?.  Vortrag:  in  der 
Kant-Gesellschaft"  ("The  Distinctive  Quality  of  the  German  Mind.  Dis- 
course before  the  Kant  Society"),  1914. 

-Nietzsche,  "Menschliches,  Allzumenschliches.  Der  Krieg"  ("Human, 
All  Too  Human.     War"). 


322  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

hitherto  only  among  the  ancient  Hellenes  when  they  opposed 
kalokagathia  (nobleness)  to  the  conception  of  barbarians. 

It  is  true  that  many  earnest  thinkers  have  felt  that  a  "spe- 
cialized civilization"  is  not  a  true  civilization.  So,  for  in- 
stance, Kant  ^  says  that  civilization  is  "the  adaptation  of  the 
capacity  of  a  reasonable  being  to  its  appropriate  function"; 
and  Fichte  -  similarly,  but  not  quite  as  clearly,  maintains  that, 
"civilization  is  the  exercise  of  all  forces  to  the  object  of  com- 
plete liberty."  Most  definite  and  satisfactory,  however,  is 
Nietzsche's  statement,  "civilization  is  the  harmony  of  mutually 
opposed  forces." 

A  painter,  musician,  or  sculptor  can  as  little  wholly  repre- 
sent civilization  as  a  scientist,  technician,  or  a  philosopher. 
Not  even  the  sura-total  of  a  particular  profession  can  by  itself 
produce  a  civilization.  The  huge  structure  of  a  period  in 
civilization  consists  in  the  combination  of  all  those  forces  which 
have  been  mentioned,  and  many  others,  into  a  single  organism 
within  which  no  check  will  be  placed  upon  the  free  develop- 
ment of  the  individual  parts.  There  are  indeed  certain 
periods  in  which  one  or  the  other  of  these  tendencies  of  mind 
was  predominant.  The  Middle  Ages  were  predominantly  re- 
ligious, the  Renaissance  was  primarily  artistic,  the  eighteenth 
century  (the  period  of  rationalism)  w^as  scientific,  the  present 
time  is  technical,  and  the  French  Revolution  was.  political. 
But  when  this  predominance  is  so  powerful  as  to  suppress  the 
other  impulses  of  the  human  spirit,  such  a  period  can  no 
longer  be  called  civilized. 

Let  us  consider  an  organism  like  a  human  being.  "We  can- 
not cut  ofL'  a  hand  without  simultaneously  involving  the  brain ; 
we  cannot  injure  the  brain  without  at  the  same  time  produc- 
ing a  detrimental  etfect  on  the  hand.  In  general  no  individual 
part  can  be  changed  without  producing  a  change  in  the  whole. 
In  the  same  way  civilization  becomes  inferior  when  one  of  its 

1  Kant,  "Kritik  der  Urtheilskraft"   ("Critique  of  Judgment"),  §  83. 

2  Fichte,  "Grundlagc  der  gesamten  Wissenschaftslehre"  ("Foundation 
of  the  Whole  Theory  of  Science"),  VI,  p.  86. 


UNJUSTIFIABLE  CHAUVINISM  323 

individual  elements  suffers.  Any  one  who  will  reflect  for  a 
moment  will  see  how  intimately  music  is  bound  up  with  all 
other  arte  and  sciences.  Let  us  merely  think  of  the  origin  of 
tragedy  and  lyric  poetry,  of  Pythagoras,  and  of  the  various 
religions. 

If  there  is  any  unifying  principle  amid  the  disruptions  of 
the  present  time,  that  principle  is  civilization.  It  is  such,  and 
will  remain  so.  However  great  the  disruptions,  civilization  by 
necessity  and  by  its  inherent  force  makes  for  unity.  Civiliza- 
tion cannot  be  disrupted  either  in  space  or  in  time.  Neither 
the  burning  of  Alexandria  nor  the  burning  of  Byzantium; 
neither  torture-chamber  nor  chair  of  St.  Peter;  neither  war 
nor  self-chosen  emasculation  on  the  part  of  certain  so-called 
leaders  of  civilization  can  destroy  it.  A  hand  will  always 
be  there  to  pass  on  the  torch  from  to-day  to  to-morrow,  from 
country  to  country. 

It  is  only  as  an  individual  part  that  a  person  can  become 
faithless  to  civilization,  and,  perhaps,  not  even  that  is  pos- 
sible. It  may  be  that  what  the  war  has  shown  is  merely  the 
falling  away  of  a  civilized  shell,  which  we  mistook  for  civiliza- 
tion, from  a  dissolute  heart.  There  is  no  question  that  civiliza- 
tion is  a  homogeneous  organism  whose  arms  encircle  the  world. 

Every  organism  can  be  subdivided  in  several  different  ways 
according  to  the  mode  in  which  it  is  viewed.  A  division  can 
be  made  according  to  bodily  regions  (arms,  legs,  trunk,  head, 
etc.),  or  according  to  systems  of  organs  (blood-vessels,  nerves, 
digestive  organs,  etc.),  that  is  according  to  systems  which 
more  or  less  uniformly  traverse  all  the  bodily  regions  men- 
tioned above. 

Civilization  as  an  organism  can  be  similarly  subdivided  ac- 
cording to  regions,  as  into  Greek  and  Roman,  German  and 
Romance,  Slavic  and  Chinese  civilization,  or  we  can  divide  it 
into  systems,  like  intellectual,  scientific,  or  technical  civiliza- 
tion, which  in  their  way  more  or  less  uniformly  traverse  all 
the  regions. 

For  the  benefit  of  those  who  are  unfamiliar  with  the  scien- 


324 


THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 


tific  conception  of  an  organism  we  have  added  the  schematic 
Fig.  6.  In  it  Germany,  France,  and  England  represent  bodily 
regions,  and  the  differently  shaded  ramifications  represent  sys- 
tems of  civilization.  The  latter  are  indicated  by  the  names 
Newton,  Kant,  and  Napoleon.  In  place  of  these,  or  rather 
in  addition  to  these,  any  other  names  or  intellectual  currents 
might  be  put.  It  is  readily  seen  from  the  figure  that  neither 
a  system  of  organs  ( as  Kant,  or  philosophy  in  general ) ,  nor  a 


Fig.  6. 


Newton 


Gefmany 


FrancQ 


Kant- 


Napoleon 


bodily  region  (as  France),  can  be  removed  without  doing 
injury  to  the  whole.  If  France  disappeared,  certain  ramifica- 
tions which  Kant's  German  philosophy  has  there  produced 
would  simultaneously  disappear.  In  other  words,  if  Germany 
should  destroy  France,  it  would  at  the  same  time  irretrievably 
destroy  certain  flowers  of  its  own  most  inherent  civilization. 
This  intertwining  of  one  zone  of  civilization  with  another,  this 
"cross-stratification"  of  civilization,  has,  especially  in  more 
recent  times,  assumed  greater  and  greater  importance,  because 
of  the  increasing  possibility  of  international  intercommuni- 
cation. 


UNJUSTIFIABLE  CHAUVINISM  325 

§  118. — The  Internationalism  of  Civilization 

In  the  matter  of  technical  civilization,  limitation  to  the 
boundaries  of  a  country  is  virtually  unthinkable.  The  posts, 
telegraphs,  railroads,  and  steamship  lines  are  in  their  very 
essence  institutions  for  all  the  world.  The  regulations  con- 
cerning them  show  a  distinct  tendency  toward  a  more  and  more 
far-reaching  unification.  Where  such  international  regula- 
tions are  still  lacking  even  in  relatively  unimportant  matters, 
such  as  whether  an  automobile  is  to  turn  out  to  the  right  or 
to  the  left,  everj'-  one  concerned  feels  that  this  is  an  anach- 
ronism. 

Scientific  civilization  also  has  not  been  national  for  a  long 
time.  Meteorology,  the  international  determination  of  atomic 
weights,  international  archaeological  study,  seismology,  and 
astronomy  are  merely  examples  selected  at  random.  They 
adequately  establish  for  every  one  familiar  with  the  respective 
science  that  here  certain  organizations  are  spread  throughout 
the  entire  world,  irrespective  of  nationality.  A  national  medi- 
cine, jurisprudence,  or  pedagogy  would  be  an  absurdity. 

The  condition  described  is  officially  recognized  in  that  there 
are  already  numerous  international  bureaus,^  administered 
by  the  totality  of  nations.  The  most  important  of  these, 
which  have  a  political  complexion,  were  distributed,  in  order 
to  guard  their  inviolability,  among  the  three  states,  Switzer- 
land, Belgium,  and  Holland,  whose  neutrality  was  guaranteed 
(alas!  in  vain). 

In  Bern  are  the  Bureau  of  Telegraphs  (1865),  of  the  Inter- 
national Postal  Union  (1874),  for  the  Protection  of  Industrial 
Property  (1863),  and  of  Copyright  (1886). 

In  Brussels  are  the  Bureau  of  Taritfs  (1890),  of  Slave  Trade 
(1890),  and  of  the  Sugar  Commission  (1902). 

In  The  Hague  are  the  Court  of  Arbitration  and  the  Superior 
Prize  Court. 

1  In  what  follows  only  the  official  bureaus  and  those  under  a  per- 
manent administration  are  given.  There  are  in  addition,  of  course, 
countless  international  associations  and  official  agreements 


326  THE  BI0L0C4Y  OF  WAR 

In  the  case  of  the  international  institutes  it  was  assumed, 
unfortunately  incorrectly,  that  the  precaution  of  locating  them 
in  neutralized  countries  would  not  be  necessary.  For  who 
would  have  believed  that  men  of  science  would  ever  renounce 
their  international  labors? 

Consequently,  there  are  in  Genuauy  two  bureaus:  "The 
Institute  for  Earth-Measurement  (1864),  at  Potsdam,  and  that 
for  seismology  (]90o),  at  Strasburg. 

In  France  there  are  also  two:  the  Bureau  of  Weights  and 
Measures  at  Sevres  (1875),  and  the  International  Bureau  of 
Public  Hygiene,  at  Paris  (1893),  with  several  branches  in  the 
Orient. 

The  international  Institute  for  the  Study  of  the  Sea  (1902) 
is  situated  at  Copenhagen,  and  that  for  Agriculture  (1905)  at 
Rome. 

There  are  besides  numerous  international  agreements  which 
govern  the  administration  of  individual  countries.  Fried  ^ 
cites  eighty-six,  dealing  with  commerce  and  trade,  law  and 
police  regulations,  science  and  social  endeavors,  and  war  and 
politics. 

A  large  part  of  modern  civilization,  such  as  manners, 
fashions,  dances,  popular  songs,  is  international.  No  one  can 
escape  this.  But  every  time  Germans  rush  into  war,  those 
who  remain  behind  determine  to  create  distinctive  Ger- 
man fashions.  The  attempt  never  met  success.  With  the 
stubbornness  of  an  unteachable  mule  the  same  campaign  was 
started  again  in  1914,  but,  despite  its  noise,  the  movement 
broke  down  more  (juickly  than  e\er  before.  The  facts  of  in- 
ternationalism are  more  powerfid  to-day  than  ever  before,  and 
cannot  be  denied.  Manufacturers  remembered  that  ready- 
made  articles  of  dress  had  to  be  shipped  to  South  America; 
others  in  a  half-ashamed  way  pointed  to  our  exports  to  Eng- 
land, and  recalled  how  many  people  were  dependent  upon 
them  for  their  livelihood.     Then  those  came  along  who  remem- 

1  Fried,  "Handbuch  der  Friedonabiwegting"  ("Handbook  of  the  Peace 
Movement"),  I,  121  et  seq.,  Leipsic,  1011. 


UNJUSTIFIABLE  CHAUVINISM  327 

bered  something  of  history — the  former  distinctively  German 
shag  hats  and  Jager  underwear,  and  the  fact  that  it  was  once 
regarded  as  unpatriotic  to  wear  these.  Next  came  the  upper 
ten  thousand,  who  remembered  that  at  some  time  in  the  future 
they  might  perhaps  want  to  play  again  at  Monte  Carlo  and 
engage  in  sports  in  the  Engadine,  and  that  on  such  occasions 
the  wearing  of  distinctively  German  styles  might  be  a  disad- 
vantage. So  even  during  the  periud  of  the  war  the  movement 
broke  down  despite  the  protests 'of  the  Gartenstrasse,  and  the 
winter  of  1914-1915  saw  Berlin  wearing  the  same  costumes  as 
Paris.  "What  is  to-day  called  "German  styles"  is  merely  cun- 
ning advertising  adapted  to  the  present  time.  In  this  the 
power  of  internationalism  is  disclosed  in  an  almost  excessive 
degree,  for  there  can  be  no  real  objection  to  any  one's  dressing 
as  individiialistically  as  he  pleases. 

Habitations,  like  human  beings,  are  also  international  and, 
unfortunately,  colorless.  Except  for  its  historic  buildings, 
Paris  to-day  can  hardly  be  distinguished  from  London.  Petro- 
grad,  Bukharest,  Constantinople,  and  Madrid  may  perhaps 
still  have  individual  characteristics,  but  here,  too,  the  tendency 
to  conform  to  an  international  type  is  unmistakable.  With- 
out the  street-signs,  it  would  be  impossible  to  distinguish  mod- 
ern quarters  in  Milan,  Berlin,  or  Stockholm  from  one  another. 

The  water-front  sections  in  Hong-Kong  and  Hamburg,  in 
Port  Said  and  New  York,  except  for  certain  externals,  are 
almost  identical.  There  are  the  same  dives  for  sailors  and  the 
same  motion-pictures,  the  same  international  prostitutes  and 
the  same  types  of  .seafaring  men.  Wealthy  sections,  like 
I'hlenhorst  (Hamburg)  and  Hong-Kong  Hill,  bear  a  closer 
resemblance  to  each  other  than  they  do  to  the  respective  har- 
bor-sections of  St.  Paul  (Hamburg)  and  Hong-Kong  Harbor. 

There  is  the  plaint  about  the  tourist  who  intrudes  every- 
where. Unless  we  bury  ourselves  in  the  solitude  of  the 
pampas,  the  steppes,  the  tundras,  or  the  primeval  forests,  it 
is  almost  impossible  to  escape  ('ook's  standardized  hotels. 

Art,  then,  remains.     It  also  has  in  reality  become  interna- 


328  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

tional.  The  latest  operetta  is  produced  almost  simultaneously 
in  the  various  capitals  of  Europe.  It  is  hardly  possible  any 
longer  to  designate  Caruso  as  an  Italian.  Tolstoy,  Ibsen,  and 
Bernard  Shaw  have  founded  schools  in  all  countries. 

There  are  cross-strata,  like  Naturalism,  Impressionism,  and 
the  recent  Futurism,  which  became  dominant  in  all  countries 
almost  simultaneously.  Even  the  local-color  school  in  art  is 
in  reality  merely  a  form  of  international  snobbishness  which 
appeared  simultaneously  in  all  countries.  In  the  case  of  art 
one  might  perhaps  seriously  speak  of  a  national  intensifica- 
tion, for  art  is  something  traditional,  and  points  toward  the 
past.  But  the  men  are  lacking  who  could  create  such  a  retro- 
spective art.  Education  is  international.  A  boy  sees  and 
studies  the  same  things  everywhere.  Even  if  he  has  grown  up 
in  the  most  forlorn  district,  his  intellectual  sustenance  has 
been  very  much  alike  everywhere.  Richard  Dehmel,  who  grew 
up  in  a  solitary  forester's  lodge  in  the  swamps  of  Branden- 
burg, justly  says  that  he  owes  his  bit  of  brains  to  ten  nations. 
As  soon  as  a  j^oung  artist  has  become  famous,  the  interna- 
tional modern  life  irrevocably  seizes  hold  of  him. 

The  attempt  on  the  part  of  the  Werdandi  League  to  revive 
the  old  characteristically  German  national  art  failed,  as  did 
similar  efforts  in  other  countries.  An  art  like  this  would 
develop  only  in  the  narrowly  isolated  cities  of  the  Middle 
Ages. 

Thus  to-day  civilization  as  a  whole  has  become  international 
in  its  essence.  Of  course  there  are  exceptions.  But  let  us 
have  no  illusions ;  they  are  unimportant. 

§  119. — The  Effect  of  Chauvinism  upon  Civilization  in  Gen- 
eral 

Since  civilization  and  patrioti.sm  are  each  an  ideal  which  by 
its  nature  must  wholly  fill  a  human  being,  a  man  cannot  serve 
both.  A  man  may  be  a  patriot  or  a  civilized  human  being. 
A  man  may  say,  "To  the  deuce  with  all  civilization,  if  only 
my  country  has  n  't  forgotten  how  to  strike  with  the  sword. ' ' 


UNJUSTIFIABLE  CHAUVINISM  329 

Whoever  says  this  is  at  least  a  logical  barbarian ;  he  is  illogical 
onl}'  in  so  far  as  he  protests  against  the  term  barbarian.  But 
whoever  holds  that  his  own  country's  civilization  lies  close  to 
his  heart  should  remember  that  it  is  joined  by  a  thousand 
secret  threads  to  foreign  countries,  and  consequently  is  in- 
jured by  the  break  of  international  relations. 

If  a  monarch  or  a  military  person  returns  the  distin- 
guished Order  of  the  Golden  Fleece,  this  may  be  a  matter  of 
indifference  to  the  world,  just  as  was  the  fact  that  at  some  time 
or  other  he  received  it.  The  purpose  of  such  an  order  is  not 
to  promote  international  civilization.  The  case  is  different, 
however,  when  men  of  science  renounce  foreign  academic 
honors  or  when  academics  expel  enemy  members.  Such  an 
act  is  contrary  to  what  an  academy  is  supposed  to  stand  for.* 
When  Privy  IMedical  Councilor  Schwalbe  issues  an  appeal 
that  no  further  international  congresses  be  summoned  and 
advocates  non-attendance  at  such  as  may  be  called,  this  fact 
concerns  mankind  at  large.  The  purpose  of  international 
medical  congresses  is,  or  should  be,  the  discussion  of  the 
"health  of  mankind,"  just  as  at  international  meetings  of 
lawyers^  the  "rights  of  man"  are,  or  ought  to  be,  discussed. 
Neither  Mr.  Schwalbe  nor  Mr.  Kohler  have  any  authority  to 
express  an  opinion  concerning  this  because  of  their  personal 
or  national  sensitiveness.  They  are,  provided  they  are  en- 
titled to  be  heard  as  spokesmen  at  all,  put  in  their  high  po- 
sitions by  the  totality  of  mankind.  Just  as  the  soldier  prefers 
to  die  at  his  post  rather  than  to  leave  it  on  the  approach  of 
danger,  so  it  simply  is  the  duty  of  such  men  to  hold  out  stead- 
ily at  their  posts.     If  they  do  not  do  this,  they  are  bad  soldiers. 

The  best  proof  of  the  hostility  between  civilization  and 
patriotism  lies  in  the  following  fact.     Patriots  in  all  serious- 

1  W'aldeyer  says  (reprint  from  "Nord  und  SUd,"  p.  6)  :  "When  the 
question  concerns  the  honorary  commands  of  regiments  and  the  like  it 
is  perfectly  proper  to  hand  in  one's  resignation.  But  in  my  opinion  it 
is  quite  a  different  matter  when  it  comes  to  the  rejection  of  honors 
obtained  in  a  purely  scientific  sphere." 

2  Compare  Kohler's  actions  in  this  respect. 


330  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

ness  believe  that  they  can  rout  out  of  civilization  everything 
that  does  not  conform  to  the  higher  demands  of  patriotism 
and  yet  leave  civilization  unimpaired.  He  who  with  con- 
temptuous gesture  of  the  hand  disposes  of  all  civilization  prior 
to  August  1  by  calling  it  estheticism  or  mannered  decadence 
acts  not  only  irreverently  toward  his  own  past,  but  also  sins 
against  the  conception  of  civilization. 

It  is  not  a  matter  of  indifference  that  teachers  to-day,  in- 
stead of  instructing  youth,  are  in  military  service;  that  pro- 
fessors, instead  of  teaching,  are  drilling  recruits;  that  our 
technicians,  instead  of  aiding  the  progress  of  German  in- 
dustry, are  building  military  telegraphs  and  manufacturing 
gas-bombs ;  in  short,  that  all  of  a  sudden  the  activities  of  our 
entire  male  population  have  been  turned  to  a  different  end. 

If  of  all  the  manifold  endeavors  of  civilization  that  we 
formerly  considered  precious,  we  now  pursue  only  those 
which  are  of  value  for  the  carrying  on  of  war,  this  voluntary 
turning  aside  dismembers  civilization.  We  shall,  and  in- 
evitably must,  pay  the  penalty. 

§  120.— The  Special  Effect  of  War 

War  encourages  the  tendencies  which  are  hostile  to  civiliza- 
tion, for  war  changes  the  character  of  man.  As  long  ago  as 
300  B.  c.  Menander  ^  declared  that  not  even  a  god  could  make 
a  decent  civilized  human  being  out  of  a  soldier;  there  is  no 
difference  to-day  in  the  reverse  after  a  soldier  has  been  made 
out  of  a  civilized  human  being.  Only  a  cultivated  man,  for 
whom  the  conditions  of  life  are  more  markedly  altered,  is 
more  profoundly  influenced  than  is  the  uncultivated  man. 
Whether  a  Polish  miner  digs  coal  or  trenches,  and  whether  a 
German  or  English  sailor  serves  on  a  merchant-ship  or  war- 
ship, is  relatively  immaterial.  When  a  teacher  is  torn  from 
his  school,  a  banker  from  his  office,  a  scholar  from  his  study, 
and  put  gun  in  hand  in  the  trenches  there  is  in  every  case  a 

1  Menander:      Kon\f'bs  arpaTiuTijs  ov6'  oLv  el  TrXdrrei  ovdeh  yivotr  B,v. 


UNJUSTIFIABLE  CHAUVINISM  331 

great  transformation.  When  a  poet  or  artist  is  snatched 
from  his  dream-land  and  set  amid  the  reality  of  cannons  the 
contrast  is  absolute,  quite  independent  of  the  question  whether 
it  is  for  the  better  or  worse.  This  applies  likewise  to  all  other 
so-called  leaders  in  civilization. 

In  the  case  of  the  physician  alone,  except  in  the  matter  of 
certain  personal  comforts,  we  are  proud  to  say  no  change  is  re- 
quired. Even  in  war  he  fights  war,  whose  wounds  he  heals. 
That  the  cured  are  employed  again  to  prolong  the  war  is  a  fact 
for  which  the  physician  as  such  cannot  be  held  responsible. 

For  every  one  else  war  means  an  overturn.  Everything 
that  the  civilized  human  being  has  previously  believed  in  is 
now  valueless.  The  point  now  is  to  act,  and  so  men  of 
thought  turn  into  men  of  action.  But  only  the  most  ex- 
ceptional among  mortals  can,  like  Goethe,  who  even  under 
the  thunder  of  the  cannons  of  Jemappes  retained  his  equable, 
cheerful  calm,  keep  their  self  undivided.  By  this  we  mean, 
combine  their  intellect  and  will  at  any  given  moment  to  make 
of  themselves  a  strong  personality.  ]\lost  people  are  either 
men  of  thought  or  men  of  action,  and  since  the  war  relent- 
lessly forces  them  to  deeds,  there  is  no  longer  room  for  thought. 

These  deeds,  so  hostile  to  civilization  in  themselves,  we  per- 
form because  of  patriotism  and  because  of  patriotism  alone. 
Professor  Gerhard  Gran  ^  of  Christiania  indicates  this  when 
he  declares  that  patriotism  causes  a  tremendous  augmentation 
of  the  human  power  for  action,  but  simultaneously  a  tremen- 
dous diminution  of  the  capacity  for  thought.  The  harmony 
of  a  true  civilization  arises  only  out  of  congruity  between 
thinking  and  acting.  In  general  it  may  even  be  said  that 
thinking  should  precede. 

Those  who  have  remained  behind  are  worse  off  than  those 
in  the  field.     The  man  who  has  been  out  there  has  subsisted 

1  Gerhard  Oran,  "Kriepr,  Wissenschaft,  und  Vaterland:  Rede  in  der 
Universitiit  von  Christiania"  ("War,  Science,  and  Fatherland:  Discourse 
at  the  University  of  Christiania"),  October,  1914. 


332  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

on  poor  and  often  inadequate  food ;  his  drink  has  been  poor, 
but  he  has  often  drunk  too  much;  he  has  marched  in  dust 
and  heat;  he  has  lain  in  mud  and  wet;  he  ^as  hardly  had 
any  other  thought  but  the  purely  vegetative  one  of  self-preser- 
vation and  of  destroying  his  opponent.  We  may  at  least 
imagine  such  a  man,  when  he  returns  home  as  after  a  long 
horrible  dream,  as  looking  at  the  alien  life  out  there  as 
something  unreal,  and  as  taking  up  his  former  life  where 
he  has  left  off. 

But  with  the  man  at  home  it  is  different.  Lecture-rooms  are 
empty ;  schools  are  poorly  conducted,  and  in  them  instruction 
only  too  frequently  is  subordinated  to  dubious  celebrations 
of  victory  and  to  the  organization  of  the  pupils  into  a  mili- 
tary reserve.  The  theaters  are  in  large  part  given  over  to 
patriotic  plays  of  inferior  value.  The  political  and  scientific 
journals  cannot  keep  away  from  the  war.  Factories  for. 
steel  pens  manufacture  bullets,  and  electrical  works  grenades. 
Former  actors  sell  the  * ' Kriegszeitung "  ("the  Army  Jour- 
nal"), and  painters  paint  only  war-pictures.  Gradually  all 
the  activities  of  peace  become  disintegrated,  and  the  entire 
mechanism,  though  primarily  destined  for  peace,  is  converted 
into  a  huge  machine  for  war.  Whoever  has  seen  all  this  no 
doubt  will  deeply  respect  the  stern  will  power  of  the  nation, 
but  at  the  same  time  a  vast  number  of  things  will  be  broken 
in  his  soul,  just  as  civilization  has  been  broken  before  his 
eyes.  We  leave  out  of  consideration  entirely  the  miserable 
and  demoralizing  campaign  of  calumniation  which  he  is  com- 
pelled to  view  at  much  closer  range  than  the  soldier  at  the 
front. 

The  direct  destruction  of  the  works  of  civilization  is  rela- 
tively unimportant  in  comparison  with  this  subjective  modi- 
fication of  the  human  capacity  for  civilization.  And  yet 
how  much  there  is  of  this  destruction !  The  fields  are  devas- 
tated, and  cities  are  burned;  industries  are  destroyed,  and 
works  of  art  are  laid  in  ruins.  Perhaps  this  is  inevitable, 
but  things  also  which  have  nothing  to  do  with  war  are  sense- 


UNJUSTIFIABLE  CHAUVINISM  333 

lessly  and  purposelessly  destroyed.  Humboldt  ^  complains 
that  his  travels  around  the  world  were  destroyed  by  war. 
The  eclipse  of  the  sun  in  1914  went  by,  and  it  was  impossible 
to  take  advantage  of  the  opportunities  ottered  despite  all 
the  preparations  that  had  been  made.  The  observations  in 
southern  Russia  in  particular  were  impossible,  and  they  were 
to  have  been  the  decisive  test  of  Einstein's  theory  of  gravity. 
This  is  the  senseless  logic  of  war.  On  the  one  side  it  sac- 
rifices millions  of  men,  and  on  the  other  side  it  holds  that  a 
single  soldier  is  worth  more  than  the  most  magnificent  beauty 
of  a  cathedral,  or  the  highest  truth  which  might  have  com- 
pleted the  work  which  Newton  began. 

1  Hmnboldt,  Letter  to  F.  Bollmann,  October  15,  1799   (in  the  possession 
of  the  Carnegie  Museum  in  Pittsburgh). 


CHAPTER  X 

The  Legitimate  Individualism  of  Nations 

1. — the  conception  of  personality 
§  121. — The  Right  to  Individuality 

Probably  never  before  have  the  friends  of  Europe  and 
the  opponents  of  a  fratricidal  European  war  felt  as  lonely  as 
they  do  to-day;  for  this  latest  war  has  taken  on  an  incon- 
ceivable magnitude.  Of  the  450,000,000  inhabitants  of  Eu- 
rope almost  400,000,000  dwell  in  the  countries  at  war.  Almost 
ten  per  cent,  of  these,  or  40,000,000,  are  under  arms,  and  of 
these  again  ten  per  cent.,  or  4,000,000,^  are  probably  already 
put  out  of  action.  These  are  numbers  with  which  all  the  bat- 
tles of  the  Roman  Republic  might  have  been  fought. 

A  little  more  than  ten  per  cent,  of  Europeans  still  live  in 
neutral  countries.  But  these  seem  so  fascinated  by  the  domi- 
nating vision  of  this  all-pervading  death  that  they,  too,  are 
yearning  to  enter  the  war,  though,  of  course,  only  under  the 
most  favorable  conditions.  An  intoxicating  enthusiasm  for 
war  is  running  through  the  countries,  as  at  the  time  when 
Peter  of  Amiens  screamed  his  deus  lo  volt  out  into  the  world 
and  made  of  it  for  two  hundred  years  such  a  madhovise  that 
finally  even  the  children  went  forth  to  war.  The  shrill  pipe 
of  the  rat-catcher  is  once  again  blowing  its  lure,  and  this  time 
it  is  not  pro  Deo:  it  is  pro  patria.  IMankind  is  always  ready 
quickly  to  carve  for  itself  a  god  or  an  idol.  But  never  before 
have  400,000,000  rats  fallen  into  the  snare. 

If  it  was  possible  for  such  an  unheard-of  fury  of  war  to  rage 

1  Since  this  was  written,  this  number  has  doubtless  grown  mucli 
larger. 

334 


LEGITIMATE  INDIVIDUALISM  OF  NATIONS      335 

throughout  all  lands,  it  was  quite  to  be  presupposed  that 
our  conception  of  right  and  honor  would  be  turned  into  ridi- 
cule, that  our  differently  understood  love  of  the  fatherland 
would  be  treated  as  high  treason,  and  that  our  belief  in  hu- 
manity would  be  reviled  as  folly.  Only  too  clearly  do  we 
feel  the  destroying  effect  of  aloneness,  the  opposite  of  mass 
feeling.  We  are  in  the  position  of  the  little  ant  which  is 
left  to  fight  companionless  within  a  hundred  paces  of  her  nest. 

Our  point  of  view,  because  it  is  shared  by  few,  seems  to  us 
for  that  very  reason  already  discredited.  It  is  of  little  use 
to  gird  ourselves  in  the  pride  of  a  deeper  understanding  and 
to  wait  for  justification  by  the  future.  It  will  surely  come 
when  once  the  headache  has  followed  the  intoxication ;  but 
for  the  present  we  feel  abandoned  and  lost.  The  vital  force 
of  the  temporary  majority  is  so  overwhelming  that  it  seems 
almost  impossible  to  hold  one's  own  against  it.  There  are 
very,  very  few  men  for  whom  the  rat-catcher  blows  in  vain, 
who  go  through  life  wise  and  unmoved,  like  children  or  very 
old  people.  But  even  they  are  not  to  be  envied,  for  very 
often  it  is  just  they  who  secretly  yearn  for  once  to  participate 
in  the  folly  of  all  mankind. 

These  are  the  men  who  stand  apart,  or  rather  walk  apart, 
for  it  is  just  they  who  are  making  progress.  They  may  have 
been  anointed  with  a  drop  of  democratic  oil,  and  they  may 
have  been  in  the  habit  of  regarding  ihe  impulses  of  a  people 
as  possessing  in  their  general  tendency  a  valuable  capacity 
for  evolutionary  development,  however  misdirected  this  po- 
tentiality may  be  in  individual  instances.  Such  a  man  must 
almost  despair,  for  it  must  seem  to  him  as  if  this  impulse  of  a 
people  toward  war  damned  utterly  his  unwarlike  ideals. 

The  "thousand  good  Europeans"  of  whom  Dostoievsky^ 
once  spoke  are  proof  against  all  the  fair  and  foul  words  of 

1  Dostoievsky,  "Ein  Werdender,"  Book  III,  ch.  VII.  These  twenty 
pages  contain  some  of  the  most  beautiful  things  ever  said  by  a  writer 
about  the  coming  European  patriotism.  1  cannot  very  well  quote  them, 
and  1  do  not  wish  to  distigure  them  by  condensation  But  every  one 
ahould  read  them. 


336  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

love  of  one 's  country  and  treason  toward  one 's  country.  They 
know  very  well  the  value  of  this  patriotism  of  the  beer- 
garden,  money-chamber,  and  school-bench.  They  know  very 
well  how  easily  a  people  is  moved,  crying  "Hosanna!"  one 
day,  and  ' '  Crucify ! "  the  next.  They  are  not  afraid  of  being 
called  men  without  honor  and  without  a  country.  But  when 
the  dark  hours  of  doubt  come  which  must  come  to  every  one 
who  goes  his  way  alone,  the  question  again  and  again  arises 
whether  he  as  an  individual  man  has  the  right  to  stand  out 
against  an  entire  people,  or  whether,  after  all,  there  is  not, 
perhaps,  a  certain  value  in  quantity,  and  even  if  right  were 
a  thousand  times  over  on  the  side  of  the  individual  man, 
whether  ultimately  the  emotional  outburst  of  400,000,000  is 
not  worth  more  than  the  reason  of  a  single  person. 

Is,  perhaps,  a  people  as  a  whole  permitted  to  commit  what- 
soever follies  it  pleases?  Perhaps  it  is  one  of  the  legitimate 
properties  of  group  of  humans  that  regards  itself  as  a  nation 
to  put  without  punishment  its  emotions  in  place  of  its  reason. 

A  dog  may  eat  whatsoever  it  wishes;  only  a  whip  or  a 
larger  dog  can  keep  it  from  doing  so,  never  reason  or  law. 
It  may  be  that  human  beings  when  they  act  in  large  groups 
still  move  on  the  level  of  dogs  and  are  permitted  to  follow 
their  inclinations  provided  the  larger  cannon  of  the  opponent 
do  not  prevent  them. 

Why,  then,  this  seemingly  purposeless  struggle?  Why 
make  oneself  ridiculous  and  even  undergo  perhaps  the  risk 
of  imprisonment?  And  yet  there  are  people  who,  despite 
all  these  very  good  reasons  for  faiut-heartedness,  feel  the  im- 
perative impulse  of  courage.  They  consider  it  necessary  to  do 
and  say  certain  things  even  if  they  cannot  conceal  the  fact 
from  themselves  that  it  is  to  no  immediate  practical  purpose. 
They  would  rather  act  absurdly  than  dishonestly.  They  feel 
the  right  and  the  duty  to  declare  themselves  and  to  defend 
their  own  individuality.  If  a  person  has  this  right,  perhaps 
a  people  also  has  the  right  and  duty  to  defend  its  own  legiti- 
mate individualitj'  against  every  one. 


LEGITIMATE  INDIVIDUALIISM  OF  NATIONS      337 
§  122. — The  Restriction  of  the  Personality 

This  is,  in  fact,  the  case,  and  is  often  difficult  to  decide  both 
in  a  people  and  in  an  individual  man  whether  individualism  is 
legitimate  or  not.  But  the  very  conception  of  individualism 
seems  to  imply  that  each  one  may  wear  it  according  to  his 
own  taste.  If  no  judge  superior  to  the  will  of  the  person 
or  of  a  people  is  recognized,  this  would  indeed  be  the  case. 
In  general,  however,  a  person  ordinarily  believes  that  reason, 
at  any  rate,  must  not  be  neglected.  Otherwise  the  deviation  is 
called  not  legitimate  individualism,  but  illegitimate  insanity. 

We  know  both  from  the  past  and  the  present  that  insanity 
may  affect  large  groups  of  people  and  nations.  The  dancing 
mania  and  St.  Vitus  dance,  the  children's  crusades,  and  the 
suicide  epidemics  in  ancient  Rome  and  present-day  Russia, 
the  witchcraft  trials  and  many  other  things,  are  counted  by 
modern  science  as  cases  in  point,  as  were  also  the  sadistic  orgies 
of  the  Roman  circus  and  the  self-torments  in  medieval  cloisters. 
Every  generation  was  always  very  liberal  in  this  respect  and 
always  very  much  inclined  to  designate  as  insanity  any  hostile 
belief.  This  is  meant  not  only  figuratively,  but  literally. 
Ileatliendom  once  looked  upon  Christianity  as  a  form  of  in- 
sanity, and  when  Christianity  became  dominant,  it  in  its  turn 
looked  upon  modern  heresy  as  an  insane  delusion.  Even 
in  the  last  century  (it  is  true,  at  a  period  of  the  worst 
reaction)  a  medical  student  wanted  to  offer  as  his  graduating 
thesis  a  dissertation  entitled,  De  morho  democratico,  nova 
forma  insanice.  It  was  only  due  to  Rudolph  Virchow's  oppo- 
sition that  a  German  university  was  spared  this  extraordinary 
doctor's  thesis. 

To-day  people  are  very  much  inclined  to  interpret  the  war 
passion  of  the  enemy  as  insanity.  We  in  Germany  were  able 
to  observe  this  at  our  leisure  in  the  case  of  Italy.  Ten  mouths' 
experience  in  war  had  taught  us.  We  recognized  that  the  fear 
of  spies,  persecution  of  foreigners,  overstraining  of  the  censor- 
ship,  poetic   war   rhapsodies,   grandiloquent  national   pride, 


338  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

in  shorT,  ^'the  whole  outward  show  of  war  enthusiasm, "  really 
belongs  in  a  lunatic  asylum.  In  order  not  to  appear  ridicu- 
lous, for  the  present  in  the  eyes  of  their  enemies  and  later, 
no  doubt,  in  those  of  the  world  at  large,  nations  should  temper 
their  capacity  for  enthusiasm  by  the  employment  of  reason. 

In  Germany  it  is  customary  to  distinguish  two  kinds  of 
reason  pure  and  practical  reason.^  This  distinction  is  per- 
haps the  most  characteristic  German  quality.  It  would  not 
be  wholly  incorrect  to  call  "Germany  the  nation  of  divided- 
ness  produced  out  of  itself. ' '  By  this  I  mean  not  only  political 
dividedness,  but  also  intellectual  and  moral. 

But  more  of  this  later  (Cf.  §  134),  For  the  present  we 
shall  discuss  this  twofold  reason  only  in  so  far  as  it  offers  us  a 
means  for  separating  legitimate  individualisms  from  those 
that  are  unwarranted.  All  difficulties  ultimately  arise  from 
the  fact  that  one  reason  prohibits  some  particular  individual 
quality  that  according  to  the  other  is  permissible.  Man,  the 
unhappy  creature  \i  ith  the  two  reasons,  does  not  know  what  to 
do. 

This  difficulty  was  not  invented  by  Kant;  at  the  most  he 
merely  formulated  it  anew.  The  belief  has  always  been  com- 
mon that  there  were  two  ways  of  viewing  the  world,  but  they 
were  not  both  designated  as  "reason."  Either  we  might 
try  to  understand  it  in  accordance  with  our  reason  or  we 
might  comprehend  it  with  love.  The  logical  side  of  this  was 
of  principal  concern  to  science,  and  the  emotional  side  chiefly 
concerned  religion,  which  by  force  of  the  feelings  have  at- 
tempted to  arrive  at  some  world  view  complete  in  itself. 

Modern  philosophy  since  the  time  of  Socrates  has  tried 
to  mediate  between  the  two,  but  necessarily  failed  in  the  at- 
tempt. The  latest  and  greatest  attempt  at  a  mediation  of 
this  sort  was  Kant's.  In  a  certain  sense  we  may  designate 
this  as  final. 

Kant  meant  to  show,  and  in  reality  did  show,  that  no  true 
mediation  was  possible  between  these  two  ways  of  viewing  the 

1  If  we  include  judgment,  there  are  three. 


LEGITIMATE  INDIVIDUALISM  OF  NATIONS      339 

world,  provided,  of  course,  that  we  once  had  become  coguizaut 
of  them.  This  is  quite  self-evident.  That  in  his  later  years 
he  tried  again  to  deny  this  contrast,  which  in  a  certain  sense 
he  himself  had  created,  merely  shows  the  instinctive  hunger 
of  mankind  for  an  all-embracing  explanation.  In  his  sublime 
system  of  antinomistic  philosophy  he  showed  that  these  two 
world  views  were  simultaneously  possible  and  simultane- 
ously necessary.  Since  they  are  also  simultaneously  contra- 
dictory and  irreconcilable,  a  bit  of  metaphysics  must  be 
dragged  in,  and  in  the  mystical  concept  ^  of  personality,  the 
inapprehensible  synthesis  finds  its  completion. 

This  attempt  failed,  as  is  to-day  probably  generally  admit- 
ted. At  any  rate,  the  practical  difficulty  remains  as  to  which 
of  the  two  intuitions  at  any  given  moment  is  the  legitimate 
one.  Let  us  grant  that  in  the  case  of  freedom,  God,  and  im- 
mortality the  standard  of  decision  should  lie  in  the  primacy  of 
practical  reason  (basically,  that  is,  of  the  emotions)  ;  and,  in 
the  case  of  mathematics,  the  primacy  of  pure  reason.  Never- 
theless, there  is  an  extensive  real  world  between  God  and 
Pythagoras.  Where  it  belongs  we  must  seek  to  discover  in 
each  individual  case. 

This  rather  inadequate  result  is  what  might  have  been  ex- 
pected. If  we  recognize  two  kinds  of  reason  as  simultane- 
ously independent,  there  naturally  can  be  no  real  permanent 
primacy.  It  must  change  just  as  an  attentive  host,  who  has 
two  men  of  equal  rank  as  guests,  serves  first  alternately  the 
one  and  then  the  other, 

A  decision  can  be  had  only  if  we  recognize  as  a  judge  some- 
thing that  is  higher  than  these  two  individual  principles. 
Kant  knew  no  such  higher  judge,  and  could  not  know  one, 
for  according  to  him  the  human  spirit  is  something  inviolable, 
and  in  a  certain  sense  something  which  cannot  be  discussed. 

1  A  concept  ia  called  mystical  because  it  seeks  to  combine  things  wliich 
are  of  themselves  incompatible.  Such  a  concept  can  become  real  only 
if  we  can  prove  the  existence  of  a  new  concept  of  personality.  Person- 
ality must  be  primarily  complete;  its  completeness  must  not  be  sec- 
ondarily constructed. 


340  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

lie  found  in  it  these  two  irreconcilable  principles,  which  he 
necessarily  had  to  regard  as  innate  ideas.  It  is  a  proof  of 
the  strength  of  his  intellect  that  he  did  not  try  to  explain 
away  these  things  by  hair-splitting,  at  any  rate  not  in  his 
"Criticism,  of  Practical  ReasoiL"  He  put  them  side  by 
side,  hard  and  direct,  as  things  of  reality  are. 

For  us,  in  this  sense,  at  any  rate,  inexplicable  things  no 
longer  exist,  because  there  are  no  longer  inborn  qualities.  All 
these  inborn  ideas  under  the  weight  of  which  science  formerly 
dragged  itself  along  have  to-day  become  accessible  to  analysis 
in  accordance  w^ith  evolutionary  theory.  We  know  that  two 
living  beings,  however  disparate  they  may  be,  can  always  be 
joined  if  we  go  far  enough  back  in  the  evolutionary  series. 
There  is  always  a  point  where  the  origins  of  these  divergent 
evolutionary  series  meet  in  a  single  trunk.  This  applies  to 
organisms  and  organizations  as  well  as  to  the  functions  of  life 
which  are  built  upon  them. 

Our  psyche  did  not  spring  complete  from  the  head  of  Zeus 
like  the  fully  armed  Athene.  It  slowly  and  gradually  de- 
veloped in  accordance  with  those  laws  and  forces  to  the  com- 
bined effort  of  which  she  ultimately  owes  her  almost  imper- 
ceptible origin  (cf.  §  163). 

These  laws  consequently  precede  all  human  reason,  and  are, 
if  one  so  will,  above  it  and  higher  than  it.  At  any  rate,  we 
must  take  our  bearings  in  accordance  with  them  if  we  are 
to  decide  which  of  the  various  possibilities  of  thought  is  legiti- 
mate. 

In  Kant  the  idea  of  evolution  had  not  yet  become  a  living 
force,  though  in  many  ways  he  anticipated  it.  For  him, 
therefore,  certain  phenomena  had  to  remain  unexplainable. 
As  a  fruit  is  unexplainable  when  certain  characteristics  of 
the  flower  are  unknown,  just  so  the  characteristics  of  the 
human  spirit  in  its  present  isolated  completion  remain  dark 
and  obscure. 

The  prevalence  of  a  rational  view  is  to-day  so  firmly  estab- 
lished that  it  seems  at  least  possible  to  trace  back  all  the  high- 


LEGITIMATE  INDIVIDUALIISM  OF  NATIONS     341 

est  ideas  which  till  mankind  to  things  which  can  be  rationally 
understood.  This  disposes  of  the  question  with  which  we 
started  out.  Virtue  and  the  capacity  for  enthusiasm  are  not 
isolated  domains  of  themselves ;  they  are  subject  to  the  control 
of  the  general  laws  of  a  thinking  reason.  Virtue,  like  every^ 
thing  else,  can  he  taught. 

§  123. — The  Primacy  of  the  Reason 

This  idea  of  the  unique  primacy  of  the  reason  is  very  an^ 
cient.  Even  the  primitive  man  exerted  his  reason  to  the 
utmost.  He  preferred  to  invent  spirits  and  dryads  rather 
than  to  relinquish  the  emplojouent  of  the  law  of  causality. 
This  belief  was  a  vital  element  in  fair  Hellas.  Socrates,  the 
most  splendid  representative  of  the  clear  soul  of  Greece,  an- 
nounced the  dominance  of  reason  over  all  metaphysics  even 
before  that  word  was  invented  when  he  said  that  virtue  can 
be  taught. 

We  have  no  wish  to  preach  a  belief  in  authority,  but  we 
are  happy  to  know  that  we  are  in  harmony  with  this  type  of 
wisdom,  for  the  "wise  Socrates"  is  the  only  one  to  whom  the 
infallible  instinct  of  the  people  has  given  this  title  of  honor. 

Socrates  not  only  declared  that  virtue  could  be  taught, 
but  he  also  indicated  the  way  by  which  it  could  be  learned 
when  he  called  attention  to  the  old  Delphic  words  "Know  thy- 
self. "^ 

Virtue  can  he  taught,  hut  only  through  self-knowledge. 
This  settles  the  subjective  aspect  of  the  matter,  for  there  is 
no  virtue  wiiich  is  identical  for  all.     Every  virtue,  like  every- 

1  Socrates  himself  never  in  thia  way  brought  into  direct  association 
with  eaih  other  these  his  two  most  famous  sayings.  It  would  lead  too 
tar  afield  were  vse  to  show  in  detail  that  in  all  his  works  he  supports 
this  point  of  view,  especially  in  reference  to  civic  virtue  and  in  reference 
to  the  memory  of  a  previous  existence.  Every  one  will  be  surprised 
at  the  modernity  of  this  ancient  (Jreek  if  he  puts  in  place  of  the  Socratic 
conception,  "memory  of  a  previous  existence,"  the  modern  conception  of 
an  inherited  predisposition.  These  two  conceptions  are  fundamentally 
identical,  ami  hence  it  is  quite  appropriate  to  claim  the  designation 
"bocratic"  lor  the  explanations  which  follow. 


342  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

thing  else,  is  dependent  upon  the  individuality  of  the  one. 
But  this  subjectivism  has  its  limitations.  There  is  an  objec- 
tive and  general  principle  of  virtue  that  plainly  proclaims 
that  it  is  impossible  for  a  virtue  or  even  a  characteristic  to 
develop  if  the  rudiment  of  it  is  not  present  in  us. 

Out  of  this  natural  impossibility  grows  a  positive  demand. 
All  men  should  recognize  as  clearly  as  possible  the  powers  and 
potentialities  that  lie  within  them  and  develop  them  to  their 
highest  perfection.  The  individual  man  should  consider  how 
or  by  what  means  he  can  accomplish  a  maximum  achievement 
and  best  serve  mankind.  Shall  he,  if  he  has  skilled  hands, 
become  a  goldsmith  or  a  mechanician;  or,  if  his  eyesight  is 
sharp,  a  seaman  or  a  huntsman;  or,  if  he  has  intelligence,  a 
man  of  science?  This  rule  of  virtue  seems  nothing  more 
than  the  homely  wisdom  of  the  ancient  proverb,  "Cobbler, 
stick  to  your  last, ' '  and  Socrates  often  enough  has  been  called 
middle-class.  But  people  forget  that  Socrates  adds,  "Perfect 
thyself. ' '  By  this  he  means  a  cobbler  who  indeed  sticks  to  his 
last,  but  who  in  the  sense  of  to-day  founds,  let  us  say,  a  shoe- 
factory.  This  example  can  likewise  be  transferred  into  the 
ethical  sphere.  The  modern  Socratic  theory  of  evolution  does 
not  require  a  man  to  remain  permanently  in  the  place  where 
a  rational  or  irrational  destiny  has  placed  him ;  rather,  it  de- 
sires a  man  to  seek  out  his  place  in  the  world  in  such  a  way 
that  it  will  have  meant  progress  to  him. 

In  other  words,  man,  too,  is  subject  to  the  law  of  evolution. 
A  person,  a  people,  or  mankind  at  large  under  its  compulsion 
can  accomplish  something  worth  while  only  when  they  do  it 
in  the  direction  indicated  to  them  by  their  hereditary  mass, 
or,  as  Socrates  calls  it,  their  memory. 

In  the  section  on  positive  and  negative  selection  (§  29) 
we  have  already  shown  that  this  inescapable  direction  is,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  present,  and  that  it  is  the  only  objective  scale 
by  which  we  can  determine  the  value  of  all  events  and  all  en- 
deavors. 

Let  us  grant  that  for  the  rest  of  the  world,  both  animate  and 


LEGITIMATE  INDIVIDUALISM  OF  NATIONS      343 

inanimate,  such  a  natural  compulsion  also  exists,  but  there  it 
is  not  called  virtue. 

Man,  indeed,  has  the  possibility,  as  has  been  shown  in  §  30, 
of  raising  himself  above  this  natural  compulsion,  because 
he  can  lay  aside  his  implements.  He  can  do  this  only  in  so 
far  as  he  uses  whatever  existing  forces  there  are ;  he  cannot 
create  new  forces  in  himself.  He  can  build  machines  and 
other  aids  for  himself,  but  he  cannot  augment  indefinitely 
within  himself  his  capacity  for  building  machines  and  aids. 
If  a  man  has  a  special  talent  for  mathematics,  he  cannot  volun- 
tarily transform  this  talent  into  one  for  writing  good  poems ; 
and  vice  versa,  the  best  poet,  however  much  he  tries,  cannot 
become  a  good  mathematician.  But  every  one  has  the  capacity 
to  stimulate  by  intensive  effort  his  inborn  capacities  to  their 
highest  point.  The  Goethean  phrase  that  one-sidedness  alone 
can  produce  a  master  has  become  a  commonplace.  But  this 
means  exactly  the  same  thing  as  when  Socrates  says  that  vir- 
tue can  be  taught  through  self-knowledge.  ^Vhen  every  one  of 
us  follows  his  inborn  laws,'  he  in  his  way  best  serves  mankind. 

§  124. — Nations  as  hidividual  Units 

What  has  been  said  applies  to  each  one  individually,  but 
in  a  still  hi.L'Iier  degree  to  people  in  general.  The  latter  are 
naturally  more  conservative,  and  it  is  more  difficult  to  turn 
them  into  a  new  direction,  because  this  requires  a  uniform 
variation  of  the  majority.  This,  however,  occurs  only  in 
very  rare  cases.  Even  the  most  many-sided  nation  can  and 
will  accomplish  useful  things  only  in  the  direction  which 
conforms  to  it«  genius.  A  nation  which  attempts  all  things 
exhibits  not  virtue,  but  dilettantism. 

This  principle  of  the  division  of  labor,  which  from  our 
present  view  of  nature  we  accept  almost  as  a  matter  of  course, 
was  vaguely  foreseen  by  the  genius  of  Socrates.  It  supplies 
the  bond  between  individualism  and  objectivism ;  it  permits 

1  That  is  the  dairaon  of  Socrates,  the  Holy  Spirit  of  the  Bible,  the 
hereditary  mass   (germ-plasm)  of  science. 


344  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

unlimited  individualism,  but  trains  it  in  the  direction  of  the 
most  useful  socialism. 

Nations  doubtless  are  individual  units  also  in  a  certain  sense. 
In  the  preceding  chapter  we  have  tried  to  show  that  a  common 
home  and  a  common  level  of  civilization  produces  common 
traits  among  the  individual  units  of  nations,  which  in  their 
totality  and  similarity  constitute  the  individuality  of  a  nation. 
If  a  nation  consists  predominantly  of  people  who  are  predis- 
posed toward  mercantile  pursuits,  it  will  be  a  commercial 
nation.  Such  a  nation  would  act  wisely  if  it  stimulated  these 
potentialities  as  far  as  possible.  It  ma}'-  be  sure  that  this 
will  result  in  the  greatest  advantages  for  itself  and  for  other 
nations.  It  is  an  absurdity  (or  in  the  Socratic  sense  a  non- 
virtue),  if  a  man  who  has  a  natural  aptitude  for  stone-cutting 
studies  jurisprudence.  In  the  same  way,  it  is  as  a  matter  of 
course  a  non-virtue  if  a  nation  specially  endowed  in  some 
particular  direction  turns  its  aspirations  into  an  entirely 
different  field. 

People,  indeed,  speak  of  a  harmony  of  nations,  and  under- 
stand by  this  the  fact  that  each  one  of  the  nations  in  its  way 
gives  the  best  that  it  possesses.  To  what  purpose  would  it  be 
if  the  English  should  set  up  the  pretension  of  wanting  to 
teach  the  world  music;  or  the  French,  quiet  comfort;  or  the 
Finnish,  mathematics;  or  the  Tatars,  painting?  There  surely 
are  many  things  which  are  not  inherent  in  a  particular  nation 
and  which  it  cannot  master;  but  every  nation  brings  some 
particular  gift  that  may  be  acceptable  to  all. 

It  may  be  objected  that  one-sidedness  in  the  long  run  is 
injurious,  and  that  one  might  very  well  remain  a  master  in 
one's  particular  field  without  of  necessity  having  to  put  aside 
all  other  things.  That  this  is  not  true  in  the  case  of  in- 
dividual persons  is  to-day  generally  admitted.  The  very  two 
men  who  are  usually  regarded  in  Germany  as  the  two  greatest 
Germans  have  taught  us  this.  Goethe  showed  this  theoretic- 
ally when,  as  has  already  been  stated,  he  said  that  without 
one-sidedness  no  one  would  become  a  master;  and  Bismarck, 


LEGITIJIATE  INDIVIDUALISM  OP  NATIONS      345 

practically,  who,  as  is  well  known,  deliberately  refused  to 
know  anything  about  subjects  which  did  not  concern  his  pro- 
fession. Among  all  novels  he  was  fondest  of  ''Die  Familie 
Buchholz,"^  and,  if  1  am  not  mistaken,  he  declared  that 
Anton  von  Werner's  pictures  were  works  of  art.  Goethe,  in- 
deed, did  not  always  follow  his  own  advice ;  he  painted,  and 
occupied  himself  with  the  study  of  physics.  Apart  from  the 
fact  that  the  great  outlines  of  the  man  appear  in  all  his 
works,  his  pictures  are  not  particularly  distinguished,  and  his 
theory  of  colors  is  incorrect.  It  is  erroneous  for  the  very 
reason  that  he  was  an  artist,  and  did  not  wish  to  see  the  law 
running  through  the  variegated  manifoldness.  He  was  on 
the  contrary  interested  in  each  individual  phenomenon. 

The  lack  of  one-sidedness  certainly  has  never  led  to  the 
highest  achievements.  Let  us  admit  that  those  with  an  ency- 
clopedic knowledge  are  often  pleasant  companions,  and  that 
journalism  also  is  an  occupation.  But  whoever  is  not  merely 
looking  for  entertainment  must  prefer  the  one-sided,  and  this 
even  more  especially  in  the  ease  of  a  nation. 

In  the  case  of  an  individual  man  we  might  excuse  a  tempo- 
rary trying  out  of  this  and  that  by  the  fact  that  he  must  test 
out  whatever  potentiality  there  is  in  him  in  order  that  his 
best  qualities  may  not  be  stunted.  There  is  no  such  danger 
in  the  case  of  a  nation,  for  it  can  try  out  its  powers  in  quite  a 
different  fashion  from  the  individual  man.  While  each  person 
must  follow  his  own  personal  destiny,  a  nation,  on  the  other 
hand,  tests  itself  from  within  to  discover  those  things  which 
are  suitable  for  the  average  members  of  this  nation  ;  that  is,  for 
the  people  as  a  whole.  In  a  nation  nothing  can  become 
stunted.  Even  if  something  is  destroyed  in  thousands  of  its 
citizens,  it  will  continue  to  live  in  thousands  of  others.  Since 
they  will  be  successful,  their  mode  of  action  will  be  imitated 
and  become  law.     Far  more  than  for  the  individual  man  it  is 

1  A  famous  German  novel  of  lower  middle-class  life  in  Berlin,  by 
Julius  Stinde.  A  condensed  English  version  by  E.  V.  Lucas  has  recently 
been  published  under  the  title  "The  Hausfrau  Rampant." — Translator. 


346  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

necessary  for  a  people  as  a  whole  to  follow  unalterably  the  way 
which  has  been  indicated  by  the  past.  It  is  in  this  direction 
only  that  progress  can  be  made,  and  for  that  reason  it  is 
important  clearly  to  see  the  way,  for  then,  and  only  then, 
will  progress  be  more  rapid.  Ever.y  attempt  arbitrarily  to 
seek  out  new  ways  can  only  delay  progress. 

2. — THE  INDIVIDUAL   QUALITIES  OF  NATIONS 

§  125. — The  Excellences  of  Individual  Nations 

Just  as  a  person  should  be  possessed  not  with  selfishness, 
but  with  self-reliance,  not.  with  haughtiness,  but  with  pride, 
so  it  is  with  nations.  Just  as  the  individual  man,  on  the  basis 
of  his  definite  inherited  qualities,  and  on  the  basis  of  his 
destiny  and  education,  can  almost  always  produce  certain 
things  which  no  one  else  can  imitate,  so  it  is  with  nations, 
and  even  in  a  much  higher  degree. 

There  are  billions  of  human  beings,  and  in  each  of  the 
civilized  nations  of  the  present  day  there  are  millions  of  hu- 
man beings.  Schleriden  once  said  that  no  leaf  was  exactly 
like  another;  so,  too,  each  human  being  in  all  these  millions 
has  some  particular  quality  which  makes  him  appear  unques- 
tionably unique  as  a  personality'  (cf.  chap,  xiv,  4).  Yet,  in 
view  of  the  very  large  number  of  human  beings,  these  differ- 
ences cannot  be  very  great,  and  finally,  in  reference  to  the 
practical  utilization  of  the  individual  for  the  benefit  of  the 
totality,  every  human  being  can  be  replaced.  It  is  different  in 
the  case  of  nations.  Owing  to  the  fact  that  all  human  beings 
included  within  them  have  usually  grown  up  under  approxi- 
mately similar  conditions,  each  person  has  received  a  certain 
common  impress.  This  impress  we  may  regard  as  the  peculiar 
quality  of  the  pan(icular  nation. 

There  are  at  the  most  a  dozen  of  these  civilized  nations. 
Not  one  of  this  dozen  is  indispensable.  It  would  be  vain  to 
believe  that  any  single  nation  exists  which  is  superior  to  all 
other  nations  in  religion  as  well  as  in  art,  in  science  as  well 


LEGITIMATE  INDIVIDUALISM  OF  NATIONS      347 

as  in  politics,  in  technical  progress  as  well  as  in  commerce; 
in  short,  in  every  human  sphere.  Can  French  wit  be  replaced 
by  English  comedy  or  German  humor;  or  vice  versa f  Would 
we  want  to  do  without  a,  Faraday  because  wc  have  a  Helmholtz, 
or  without  a  Lamarck,  because  a  Darwin  was  born?  Can 
Bismarck  replace  Napoleon,  or  Washington  replace  Crom- 
well? Jesus  of  Judea  and  Francis  of  Assisi  can  as  little  be 
left  out  of  the  Christian  religion  as  Luther,  the  German,  or 
Tolstoy,  the  Russian.  The  German  Mathias  Griinewald  saw 
the  Good  Friday  tragedy  from  a  different  angle  than  the  Flem- 
ish Rubens,  and  Mantegna,  the  Italian,  saw  it  differently  from 
Greco,  the  Spaniard.  But  who  shall  say  which  vision  was 
the  deepest?  The  decision  is  just  as  impossible  as  is  that 
whether  the  grapes  of  Burgundy,  the  Rhine  country,  or  Spain 
produce  the  best  wine.  All  these  things,  like  Russian  caviar, 
the  char  of  the  Konigsee,  the  amber  of  East  Prussia,  and 
much  else,  are  specific  products  of  a  particular  country,  which 
flourish  nowhere  else. 

In  an  industrial  way  also  each  country  may  be  notable  for 
certain  special  products.  The  silk  of  Lyons,  the  linen  of 
Silesia,  the  calicos  of  England,  the  furs  of  Russia,  are,  or  at 
least  were,  famous. 

It  is  true  that  industries  may  change,  owing  to  certain  tech- 
nical advances  in  different  countries.  Thus  once  the  Damas- 
cus blade  was  the  most  famous,  while  later  that  of  Toledo  was 
regarded  as  the  best.  It  is  true  that  in  many  fields  of  in- 
dustry Germany  need  not  fear  comparison  with  other  nations, 
but  that  is  no  reason  why  we  should  forget  the  nations  which 
were  our  teachers  in  these  matters.  Something  will  always 
turn  up  again,  even  if  it  is  only  temporarily,  in  which  they  are 
in  advance  of  us.  Let  us  think  for  a  moment  of  the  appli- 
ances of  modern  intercourse.  Automobiles  came  from  France, 
the  aeroplane  from  America,  submarines  and  wireless  telegra- 
phy from  Italy. 

Certain  particular  products  are  always  procured  from 
abroad,  as,  for  instance,  Lumiere  plates  from  Lyons,  tabloids 


348  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

from  England,  gumboots  from  Russia,  and  straw  hats  from 
Italy.  Some  things  are  bought  abroad  because  we  do  not 
care  to  produce  them  at  home ;  other  things  because  we  cannot 
produce  them,  not  for  lack  of  raw  materials,  but  because  in 
certain  respects  the  technical  skill  of  other  countries  has  pro- 
gressed further.  Many  countries  of  a  younger  civilization 
have  already  caught  up  with  Germany  in  many  respects,  and 
perhaps  even  have  outdistanced  it.  It  would  be  idle  to  make 
specific  comparisons  as  to  what  certain  nations  do  better  than 
others.  America's  extraordinary  achievements  in  the  field  of 
machine  construction  (instruments  of  precision  and  in  elec- 
tricity) are  perfectly  obvious. 

As  the  individual  man  long  since  has  been  unable  to  make 
a  living  without  the  help  of  others,  so  nations  have  also  be- 
come interdependent.  Above  all,  it  would  mean  impoverish- 
ment if  each  nation  would  not  gladly  learn  and  receive  from 
every  other.  It  is  regrettable  that  in  recent  times  the  mischief 
of  crediting  every  invention  to  some  particular  national  in- 
ventor has  become  more  and  more  prevalent.  Yet  this  is  at 
most  harmless  vanity ;  it  would  be  worse  if  everj'^  invention  had 
to  be  invented  a  dozen  times  over. 

§  126. — The  Excellences  of  Their  Defects 

All  this  is  so  self-evident  that  Guizot,  though  he  WTote  the 
history  of  European  civilization  entirely  from  the  French 
point  of  view,  nevertheless  says  of  civilization:  "Though  in 
general  it  is  relatively  uniform  in  the  different  countries  of 
Europe,  it  is  nevertheless  intinitely  diverse,  and  complete  in 
no  country.  Its  elements  must  be  sought  now  in  France, 
now  in  England,  now  in  Germany,  and  now  in  Spain."  ^ 

This  diversity  amid  relative  uniformity  is  still  to-day  the 
most  patent  fact.  The  question  of  the  justification  of  an  ex- 
clusive patriotism  does  not  deserve  discussion  among  sober 
thinkers.  No  one  but  a  madman  would  do  away  with  the  total- 
ity of  nations  to  put  his  own  solely  in  their  stead. 

1  (ruizot,  "Histoire  de  la  civilisation  en  Europe." 


LEGITi:\IATE  INDIVIDUALISM  OF  NATIONS     349 

In  addition  to  its  excellences,  every  nation  has  its  defects. 
The  English  are  bigoted  and  stubborn,  the  French  are  vain 
and  fickle,  Spaniards  are  proud,  and  Hollanders  are  phleg- 
matic ;  the  Turks  are  indolent,  and  the  Corsicans  vengeful, 
the  Russians  drink,  and  the  Gerraans  love  titles  and  liveries; 
the  Cretans  lie,  and  the  Greeks  cheat,  the  Americans  put  their 
feet  on  the  table,  and  the  Chinese  spit. 

All  these  things  are  proverbial,  even  if  they  are  not  always 
appropriate;  nations,  nevertheless,  usually  have  other  and 
serious  defects— the  defects  of  their  excellences.  There  is 
hardly  a  single  good  quality  which  does  not  also  have  its 
shadow  side  or  disadvantage.  "Whoever  is  very  philanthropic 
cannot  be  economical ;  whoever  has  made  goodness  the  prin- 
ciple of  his  life  cannot  always  follow  the  dictates  of  wisdom; 
whoever  makes  a  god  of  success  cannot  embod}^  within  himself 
the  finest  flower  of  civilization ;  and  much  more  like  this. 

The  Semitic  race,  for  example,  is  predisposed  toward  tran- 
scendental dialectics  and  ethical  legislation.  In  it  was  incor- 
porated at  an  early  period  the  relatively  purest  expression 
of  the  idea  of  God.  It  forbade  the  making  of  an  image  of  its 
God,  and  so  put  art  under  the  ban.  It  would  have  stoned 
Phidias,  the  sculptor  of  divinities,  as  Emil  du  Bois  Reymond  ^ 
once  said.  So  it  is  everywhere,  and  every  nation  has  its  good 
and  bad  qualities,  each  necessarily  conditioned  by  the  other. 
I'or  this  reason  a  nation  usually  cannot  put  aside  its  defects 
without  simultaneouslj^  losing  its  excellences. 

The  possession  of  all  excellences  is  contrary  to  the  economic 
law  which  runs  throughout  all  nature.  Even  if  the  desire 
to  achieve  mankind's  crown  may  be  the  best  part  of  us,  every- 
thing cannot  be  accomplished  with  Faust's  words,  "I  will." 
A  Mephistopheles  always  comes  and  whispers  in  our  ears  that 
we  cannot. 

Allt'  edlen  Qualitiiten 
Auf  euren  Elirensclieitel  haufen, 

1  Emil  du  Bois  Reymond,  Cber  eine  Akademie  der  deutschen  Sprache 
("Concerning  an  Academy  of  the  Cerman  Language"),  p.  11. 


350  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

Des  Lowen  mut, 

Des  Hirsches  Sehnelligkeit, 

Des  Italieners  feurig  Blut, 

Des  Nordens  Dau'rbarheit, 

Laszt  ihn  Euch  das  Geheimnis  finden, 

Groszmut  und  Arglist  zu  verbinden, 

Und  Euch,  mit  warmen  Jugentrieben, 

Naeh  einem  Plane  zu  verlieben. 

Mochte  selbst  solch  einen  Horren  keuueu, 

Wiird'  ihn  Herm  Mikrokosmus  nennen.^ 

No  one  who  has  recognized  this  actual  impossibility  will 
believe  that  all  good  qualities  are  combined  in  his  nation, 
neither  will  he  blame  another  nation  because  he  discovers 
ignoble  qualities  in  it.  On  the  contrary,  he  will  rejoice  in 
goodness  and  beauty  wherever  he  sees  it,  and  he  will  ulti- 
mately arrive  at  the  Goethean  wisdom,  and  be  able  to  say  even 
of  foreign  nations: 

Was  je  ihr  geselin, 
es  sei  wie  es  wolle, 
es  war  doeh  so  schon. 

(Roughly :  Whatever  ye  have  seen,  be  it  what  it  may,  it  neverthe- 
less was  beautiful.) 

1  Wear  the  crown,  and  show  it, 
Of  the  qualities  of  his  creation, — 
The  courage  of  the  iion'a  breed, 
The  wild  stag's  speed, 
The  Italian's  tiery  blood. 
The  north's  firm  fortitude! 
Let  him  find  for  thee  the  secret  tether 
That  binds  the  uoble  and  mean  together. 
And  teach  thy  pulses  of  youth  and  pleasure, 
To  love  by  rule,  and  hate  by  measure ! 
1  'd  like,  myself,  such  a  one  to  see : 

Sir  Microcosm  his  name  should  be. — Bayard  Taylor's  trans- 
lation, "Faust,"  Sc.  IV. 


LEGITIMATE  INDIVIDUALISM  OF  NATIONS      351 


3. — THE   PECULIAR   QUALITY  OF  THE  GERMAN   SPIRIT 

§  127. — German  Civilization 

It  is  difficult  to  grasp  the  spirit  of  a  people.  We  must  base 
a  judgment  not  upon  a  single  person,  but  upon  a  vast  number. 
We  must  select  not  what  would  be  characteristic  for  one  per- 
son, which  would  he  relatively  simple,  but  the  characteristics 
of  something  of  a  hitherto  unknown  greatness ;  that  is  to  say, 
of  a  people. 

This  has  never  been  completely  successful.  What  sense  is 
there  if  the  farmer  philosopher  Hermann  Cohen  ^  declares 
that  "the  peculiarity  of  the  German  spirit  lies  in  its  combina- 
tion of  rationalism  and  idealism;  all  mysticism  is  un-Ger- 
man"?  And  his  colleague  Lasson  ^  says  exactly  the  opposite, 
stating  that,  "the  mystic  trend  is  the  most  inherently  Ger- 
man." Or  again  Lord  Haldane  ^  says  that  the  German  acts 
"in  accordance  with  a  concept,"  in  contrast  to  the  English- 
man, who  acts  "in  accordance  with  an  idea";  whereas  Scho- 
penhauer* implies  exactly  the  opposite  when  he  writes,  "the 
Englishman  believes  in  the  abstract  concept  of  justice,  while 
the  German  is  a  friend  of  the  to  him  current  idea  of  equity. ' ' 

There  is  another  interesting  contrast.  The  lectures  given 
by  Cohen  and  Lasson  during  the  course  of  the  war  seek  to  ap- 
propriate all  the  noble  qualities  for  the  German.  Schopen- 
hauer and  Lord  Haldane,  on  the  other  hand,  seek  to  praise 
the  foreign  nation.  In  general  the  man  of  education  is 
likely  to  overestimate  the  foreigner,  because  he  also  under- 
stands that  which  is  different.  If  Germans  formerly  carried 
this  to  a  further  degree  than  the  English,  it  was  a  national 

1  Cohen,  "Kriegsvortrag"   ("Lecture  on  the  War"). 

2  Laason,  "Kriegsvortag"    (''Lecture  on   the  War"). 

3  Lord  Haldane,  "Great  Britain  and  Germany,"  Oxford  Address,  Au- 
gust 3,  1911,  in  "Universities  and  National  Life,"  3rd  Edition:  London, 
l!t12,  p.  112. 

4  Schopenhaupr,  "I  ber  die  Grnndlajren  der  Moral"  C'Tho  Foundations 
of  Morals"),  III.,  §  17.     Frauenstadfis  Edition,  vol,  IV.,  p.  222. 


352  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

virtue,  which  in  the  highest  measure  was  the  envy  of  all  edu- 
cated foreigners.^ 

It  would  be  easy  to  extend  the  list  of  national  virtues  which 
counterbalance  one  another.  German  flunkyism  and  love 
of  liberty  have  been  supported  by  e(|ually  good  reasons.  Ger- 
man faith  and  the  gratitude  of  the  house  of  Hapsburg 
are  both  proverbial.  The  belief  in  the  purity  of  the  German 
woman  has  not  kept  them  from  accepting  a  fallen  girl 
{Gretchen)  as  her  ideal  type.  Only  very  few,  as  Kolliker,- 
for  example,  have  noticed  this  conflict  at  all. 

Precise  definitions  of  this  nature  are  usually  too  narrow  in 
view  of  the  unlimited  diversity  of  civilization.  Just  as  we 
cannot  describe  a  face,  but  have  to  paint  it,  so,  for  instance,  the 
picture  of  German  civilization  becomes  clearly  perceptible 
only  when  we  think  of  certain  definite  men  like  Goethe  and 
Kant,  Keppler  and  Helmholtz,  Beethoven  and  Mozart.  It 
may  be  held  that  these  are  exceptions.  Let  us,  then,  view 
such  things  as  German  philology  and  esthetics,  German  chem- 
istry and  optics,  German  steel  and  electrical  industries. 

The  German  is  unquestionably  entitled  to  regard  these 
things  as  unique  products  of  civilization.  They  cannot  be 
omitted  from  the  civilization  of  mankind  at  large.  If  a  civi- 
lization could  be  based  upon  or  overthrown  by  wars,  the 
crudest  war  itself  would  be  worth  the  price  for  their-  sake. 
But  in  addition  to  this  right  the  German  has  the  duty  to  con- 
sider whence  this  civilization  really  derives. 

The  German  spirit  did  not  just  happen  to  drop  from  the 
moon.  It  can  be  accounted  for  in,  and  owes  its  origin  to,  a 
very  definite  terrestrial  environment.  No  other  nation  can 
ever    repeat    the    distinctive    features    of    this    development. 

1  Karl  von  Holtei  in  "300  Briefe  aus  zwei  Jahrhiinderten"  ("300  Let- 
ters of  Two  Centuries")  :  Hanover,  1872,  vol.  2,  p.  XVI.,  onee  aptly  said, 
"To  me  the  highest  degree  of  education  of  a  nation  lies  in  the  fact  that 
it  enables  its  men  to  recognize  adequately  the  value  and  meaning  of  other 
nations." 

-Kolliker.  "'Goethes  Faustschlag  ins  Gcsicht  der  deutschen  Sittlich- 
keit"   ("Goethe's  Blow  in  the  Face  of  German  Morality"). 


LEGITIMATE  INDIVIDUALISM  OF  NATIONS     353 

They  are  based  on  the  unique  combination  of  circumstances 
that  Germany  formed  the  center  between  older  civilizations. 
It  received  stimuli  from  all  sides,  and  was  able  to  develop  the 
highest  degree  of  civilization  even  before  it  was  politically  a 
nation.  Just  because  all  the  barriers,  conditioned  by  a  politi- 
cally important  role,  were  absent,  the  German  was  able  to  ac- 
chieve  his  world-embracing  universality.  And  no  one  can 
deny  that  this  is,  or  at  least  was,  the  peculiar  quality  of  his 
spirit. 

§  128. — Originality 

Gladly  and  gratefully  all  great  Germans  have  tried  to  digest 
and  elaborate  within  themselves  the  totality  of  the  civilization 
of  their  period.  Even  if  no  nation  is  thinkable  without  for- 
eign influences,  this  is  especially  true  of  Germany.  Its  civili- 
zation is  so  deep  and  glorious  and  original  just  because  it  is 
not  autochthonous,  but  embraces  all  the  world. 

Richard  Wagner  was  one  of  the  first  to  maintain  this.  In 
respect  to  German  music,  which  is  the  German  soul  laid  bare, 
he  said,  "German  genius  seems  destined  to  search  among  its 
neighbors  for  that  which  is  not  inborn  in  its  motherland, 
but  it  carries  this  beyond  its  narrow  limits,  and  so  creates 
something  universal  for  all  the  world." 

This  is  particularly  true  of  Bach,  the  founder  of  German 
music.  He  lived  under  the  pressure  of  a  narrow  middle- 
class  life,  and  hardly  saw  anything  beyond  his  Thiiringian- 
Saxon  home.  Nevertheless,  his  point  of  departure  was  not  in 
the  folk  melodies  of  his  country,  as  it  was  the  case  with  artists 
of  other  nations  when  they  created  their  national  music.  He 
was  a  true  German.  Laboriously  he  gathered  what  was  best 
from  all  the  world,  and  created  with  it  the  art  that  is  most 
characteristically  German.  With  tremendous  industry  he 
studied  all  the  material  at  hand,  Italian  vocal  and  violin 
music,  as  well  as  French  instrumental  music  and  opera  (espe- 
cially the  orchestral  suites),  and  also  whatever  was  musically 
valuable  in  the  Netherlands  and  England.     He  acquired  all 


354  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

these  things  to  make  them  his  own.  On  their  basis  he  created 
works  which  were  already  distinctly  German,  though  in  ex- 
ternals (gigue,  air,  saraband,  etc.)  they  still  showed  the  old 
forms,  and  in  many  occasional  pieces  suggested  very  miich  the 
Italian  manner.  Out  of  this  he  created  ultimately  new  forms, 
like  the  cantata  and  the  German  passion  play,  and  finally 
the  Prussian  (or,  as  it  has  also  been  called,  the  "Frilzian") 
fugue,  his  most  characteristic  contribution  to  music.  But 
even  in  this  fugue  there  are  distinct  reminiscences  of  Italy  and 
France;  "he  merely  combined  in  himself  the  advantages  of 
the  French  and  Italian  masters-,"^ 

It  is  generally  known  that  the  same  thing  is  true  of  Mozart, 
and  no  one  will  contradict  Wagner  who  said  of  him,  "He 
■was  a  German  who  raised  the  Italian  school  to  the  ideal  of 
perfection,  and  in  this  way  gave  it  universality  and  ennobled 
it." 

The  same  thing  applies  to  German  philosophy,  which  is  the 
second  distinctively  German  branch  of  endeavor.  It  is  only 
necessary  to  point  out  that  Windelband  used  almost  the  same 
words  of  it  that  Wagner  used  of  music.  "Kant,"  he  says  in 
his  well-known  "History  of  Philosophy,"^  "has  made  his 
own  the  various  motives  of  thought  of  [foreign]  philosophical 
literature,  and  from  the  way  in  which  they  supplemented  one 
another  worked  out  from  them  an  entirely  new  conception." 
Kant  depends  equally  much  upon  German  popular  philosophy, 
the  psychological  analysis  of  the  English,  and  the  honest  liber- 
alism of  the  French.  He  mentions  as  the  special  inspirers  of 
Kant,  Wolf  among  the  Germans,  Hume,  Newton,  Toland,  and 
Shaftesbury  among  the  English,  and  Rousseau  and  Voltaire 
among  the  French. 

The  same  thing  might  be  shown  in  reference  to  all  other 
arts  and  sciences.     German  Gothic  architecture  and  German 

1  Spemann,  ''Goldenes  Buch  der  Musik"  ("Golden  Book  of  Music"), 
chap.  328. 

2W.  Windelband,  "Geschichte  der  Philosophic"  ("History  of  Thilos- 
ophy"),  VI.,  1,  p.  418  et  seq. 


LEGITIMATE  INDIVIDUALISM  OF  NATIONS      355 

minnesong  have  their  roots  in  France,  but  they  reached  their 
highest  development  on  this  side  of  the  Rhine.  If  this  ulti- 
mate completion  was  denied  to  German  painting,  the  essential 
reason  probably  is  that  it  failed  of  a  harmonious  working  out. 
German  painters,  with  certain  exceptions,  remained  "copy- 
ists of  the  Italians,"  or  they  could  not  rise  bej^ond  the  gro- 
tesque of  the  German  fifteenth  century.^ 

In  general  Schlegel  ^  is  correct  when  he  says  of  the  German : 

Was  in  Kunst  und  Wissenschaft 
Freumder  Himmel  Grosses  scliafft, 
Ward  von  ihm  alsbald  erkannt, 
Wuchs  so  machtiger  seiner  Hand. 

(Roughly:  Whatever  of  greatness  foreign  skies  have  created  in 
art  and  science,  he  recognized  at  once,  and  in  his  hand  it  mightier 
grew. ) 

The  narrow  exclusiveness  that  to-day  so  eagerly  and  noisily 
loves  to  pose  as  patriotism  is  particularly  unbecoming  to  the 
German,  because  in  his  case  it  has  the  effect  of  particular 
ingratitude. 

German  dependence  on  what  is  foreign  has  surely  often 
been  carried  too  far.  For  this  reason,  though  Germany  has 
been  a  power  with  which  the  world  had  to  reckon  for  at  least 
fifteen  hundred  years,  it  has  never,  as  Dostoievsky  once  said, 
given  the  world  a  "new  word."  The  German  has  either  made 
the  foreign  a  part  of  himself  or  he  has  protested  against  it. 
He  destroyed  ancient  Rome,  and  later  the  new  Roman-Catholic 
world  idea,  and  he  has  put  nothing  in  their  place.  Dostoiev- 
sky ^  develops  this  thought  into  an  overpowering  vision.  He 
writes  that  in  the  future  something  exceeding  strange  might 
perhaps  occur.     It  is  this,  that  some  day  when  Germany  has 

1  Cf.  the  chapter  on  "National  German  Art"  in  Muthcr's  "History  of 
Fainting,"  vol.  II. 

■i  Fr.  V.  Schlegel,  "Gedichte"   ("Poems"'),  p.  334. 

s  Dfistoievski.  "Drei  Ideen"  ("Three  Ideas")  in  the  January  issue  of 
the  "Grazdinin,"  1877. 


356  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

destroyed  everything  against  which  it  has  protested  for 
nineteen  centuries,  it  will  suddenly  have  to  die  spiritually 
itself  soon  after  the  enemy,  simply  because  there  will  then 
be  no  longer  a  reason  for  its  existence.  There  will  be  nothing 
left  against  which  it  can  protest.  No  one  who  is  not  wholly 
blind  can  easily  escape  the  demonic  terribleness  of  this  idea. 
There  surely  is  a  grain  of  truth  in  it,  and  the  present  day 
shows  all  too  clearly  the  greatness  of  the  danger. 

But  Dostoievsky  was  in  error  when  he  thought  any  nation 
could  or  had  the  duty  to  give  the  world  a  new  idea.  Dostoiev- 
sky hopes  that  it  may  be  Russia.  The  world  is  too  large  and 
has  become  too  diverse  for  this.  If  any  nation  of  the  present 
day  desires  to  do  something  essentially  important  for  the  fu- 
ture, it  must  teach  the  world  to  see  its  own  many-colored  di- 
versity and  it  must  put  it  to  good  account. 

This  is  just  what  Germany  can  do.  The  same  instinct  which 
made  the  German  somewhat  contemptible  as  a  protestant  in 
the  world  of  conflicts  will  make  him  welcome  as  a  mediator 
in  a  united  world. 

This  is  what  all  good  Germans  have  long  since  expected  and 
hoped  for. 

§  129. — The  Period  of  German  Greatness 

One  of  the  first  to  grasp  this  clearly  was,  as  always,  Goethe. 
He  called  the  "fatherland  talk  of  the  Germans,"  which  began 
after  the  Wars  of  Liberation,  a  disease  that  produced  an  at- 
mosphere in  which  we  ' '  daily  wasted  aAvay  like  a  consumptive 
with  uncertainty,  and  merely  to  live  and  manage  to  get  along 
had  to  lie  to  ourselves  in  the  most  miserable  way."^  Goethe 
is  so  unhappy  over  this  deca}'  of  German  greatness  and  is  so 
anxious  to  save  any  precious  universal  spirit  that  he  makes  the 
almost  fantastical  proposal  "to  scatter  the  Germans  like  the 
Jews  throughout  all  the  world,  for  only  abroad  are  they 
bearable."  ^ 

1  Goethe,  letter  to  Zelter,  August  24,  1823. 

2  I^etter  of  W.  von  Humboldt  to  his  wife,  November  IT,  1808. 


LEGITIMATE  INDIVIDUALISM  OF  NATION'S      357 

In  order  to  estimate  this  proposal  at  its  right  value,  we 
should  remember  that  Goethe  stood  above  nations  and  con- 
ceived himself  as  a  European,  not  with  his  reason,  but  also 
with  his  emotions,  which  is  more  important.  For  this,  too,  he 
has  given  us  the  decisive  test  in  his  demand  that  we  "feel  the 
good  fortune  or  the  woe  of  a  neighboring  country  as  though  it 
had  happened  to  our  own."^  Just  as  Christ  does  not  mean 
to  exclude  a  legitimate  egoism  when  he  says,  "Love  thy  neigh- 
bor as  thyself"  (for  only  a  madman  can  love  another  more 
than  himself),  so  according  to  Goethe  we  are  to  love  other 
nations  like  our  own.  If  something  happens  to  our  own,  it 
comes  first.  At  the  same  place  Goethe  says  that,  of  course, 
though  he  "did  not  hate  the  French,  who  are  among  the  most 
civilized  nations  of  the  world,"  he  nevertheless  thanked  God 
"when  we  had  gotten  rid  of  them." 

Now,  many  may  object  that  Goethe  did  not  have  any  sense 
of  patriotism.  It  is  therefore  important  to  point  out  that 
Schiller  felt  exactly  the  same  in  this  respect.  He  surely  has 
described  in  glowing  enough  colors  the  patriotic  yearning  for 
liberty  of  enslaved  Switzerland  and  of  occupied  France.  Even 
to-day  it  is  still  a  favorite  theme  for  school  essays  to  show  how 
"the  Maid"  prepared  the  ground  even  in  Germany  for  the 
awakening  of  patriotism. 

This  latter  may  have  been  actually  the  case,  but  it  is  not  so 
in  Schiller's  sense.  Schiller  recognized  the  distinctive  (jualily 
of  the  German  spirit  just  in  this  that,  in  contrast  with  the 
spirit  of  other  nations,  it  was  not  nationally  restricted. 

Wo  der  Franke,  wo  der  Britte 
Mit  dern  stolzeu  siegerschritte 

(Roughly:  When  the  Frank,  when  the  Briton  witli  proud  vic- 
torious step.) 

Dare  the  German,  he  once  asked.-  now  determine  our 
destiny,  stiU  be  proud  of  and  take  joy  in  his  name?     Yes, 

1  (Joetlie,  "Coiivorsatioiis  with   Eckcrnianii." 

2  Schiller,  "Entwurf  zu  cinem  Gedicht'   ("Draft  for  a  Poem"). 


358  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

he  dare  do  so.  He  may  leave  the  battle  in  a  wretched 
state,  but  that  which  gives  him  his  true  worth  he  has  not 
lost.  The  German  Empire  and  the  German  nation  are  two 
separate  things.  The  German  has  created  his  own  worth,  and 
even  if  the  empire  should  fall,  German  honor  would  remain 
unassailable.  It  is  an  ethical  greatness,  indwelling  in  the 
civilization  and  character  of  the  nation,  and  is  not  dependent 
on  its  political  fate.  As  the  political  realm  trembles,  the 
spiritual  one  has  gro«wn  larger  and  larger.^ 

In  these  words  there  is  a  clear  recognition  of  the  fact  that 
German  originality  can  be  explained  only  by  the  political  im- 
portance of  the  German  Empire.  And  exultingly  he  adds  that 
Germany  will  be  victorious  when  morals  and  reason  are  vic- 
torious and  when  rude  force  yields  to  form. 

Who  can  seriously  deny  that  we  might  be  at  least  as  proud 
of  such  a  victory  or  even  prouder,  without  indicating  a  lack 
of  modesty,  than  France  is  of  Austerlitz  or  England  of 
Trafalgar? 

All  German  civilization-patriots  hoped  for  such  a  victory. 
It  was  hdd  to  be  (luite  impossible  that  Germany  could  pos- 
sibly lose  its  world-embracing  idealism.  Jean  Paul  merely 
expressed  the  opinion  of  his  time  when  he  said,  "It  is  not 
possible  for  us  many-sided  Germans  (as  it  is  for  the  French 
and  English)  to  hold  our  eyes  shut  and  to  feel  nothing  of 
Europe  except  our  own  eye ;  it  is  impossible  for  us  so  to  limit 
our  view." 

Nor  was  this  alone  the  opinion  of  our  classical  writers  of 
1813;  the  romantic  writers  after  1813,  when  it  was  already 
clearly  apparent  whence  the  road  was  leading,  felt  this  even 
more.  It  was  toward  such  a  victory  that  the  enthusiasm  of 
the  old  students'  associations  (Burschenschaften)  was  di- 
rected, and  Herwegh's  German  song  was  meant  for  it.     He 

1  Of  the  more  recent  Germans,  Moritz  Carriere,  for  example,  says 
"Wechselbeziehungen  deutscher  und  italienischer  Kimst,"  ("'Interrela- 
tions between  German  and  Italian  Art,"  Breslau,  p.  5),  "What  Germany 
lost  in  external  power  ace-rued  to  its  advantage  in  art." 


LEGITIMATE  INDIVIDUALISM  OF  NATIONS      359 

believes  that  through  modern  technical  improvements  (the 
"German  fiery  chariots")  a  homogeneous  European  civiliza- 
tion will  become  possible,  and  with  proud  patriotism  he  calls 
upon  his  people: 

Wenn  alle  welt  den  Mut  verlor, 

Die  Fehde  zu  beginnen, 

Tritt  du  mein  Volk,  den  Volbem  vor 

Lasz  du  dein  Herzblut  rinnon ! 

Gib  uns  den  mann,  der  das  Panier 

Der  neuen  Zeil  erfasse, 

Und  dureh  Europa  breeben  wir 

Der  Freiheit  eine  Gasse.^ 

(Roughly:  When  all  the  world  lose  courage  to  begin  the  strife, 
stand  forth,  thou  my  people,  at  the  other  people's  head,  and  let 
your  heart's  blood  flow.  Give  us  the  man  who  will  seize  the  standard 
of  this  new  time,  and  let  us  througli  Europe  breach  a  I'oad  for 
liberty.) 

In  general  at  that  time  the  fatherland  was  conceived  as  a 
humane,  ethical  figure.  It  is  characteristic  that  two  thirds 
of  the  patriotic  songs  in  the  common  German  students'  song- 
book  give  expression  to  the  desire  for  liberty.  At  that  time 
all  endeavors  in  the  direction  of  the  realization  of  a  unified 
Germany  were  identical  with  the  general  striving  of  nations 
for  liberty  and  progress.  In  those  happy  days  the  German 
ideal  and  the  ideal  of  mankind  were  bound  up  closely  with 
each  other. 

But  matters  took  a  different  turn.  Forgotten  was  the  beau- 
tiful song  which  Treitschke  said  was  so  often  sung  when  he 
was  still  young : 

1  Georg  ITerwegh  in  1841  publislied  "  Gedichte  eines  Lebendingen" 
("Poems  of  a  Contemporary"),  which  were  were  republican  or  liberal 
in  tendency  and  extremely  popular.  In  1847  he  raised  a  German 
democratic  legion  for  the  invasion  of  Baden  and  the  establishment  of 
a  revolutionary  government  there;  but  failing,  he  fled  to  Switzerland. 
He  translated  several  of  Shakspere's  plays. — Translator. 


360  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

Wenn  die  Deutsehen  Deutsche  werden, 
Griinden  sie  das  Reich  auf  Erden, 
Das  der  Welt  den  Friesden  giebt.^ 

(Roughly:  When  the  Germans  German  will  become,  they  will 
establish  the  realm  upon  earth  which  will  give  peace  to  the  world.) 

But  "we  no  longer  feel  as  simply  as  that."  And  yet  the 
old  saying,  by  force,  force  is  overcome,  is  to-day  no  longer  as 
absolute  as  it  was.  If  there  is  one  thing  certain  in  this  world, 
it  is  the  fact  that  a  people  to-day  can  win  victory  only  when  it 
concentrates  all  its  forces  upon  the  peaceful  competitive  strug- 
gle between  nations,  and  when  it  strives  to  become  a  force  that 
will  bring  peace  to  the  world.  The  time  has  come  when  crude 
force  no  longer  will  decide,  but  the  capacity  for  civilization. 
There  is  no  question  that  Germanj^  was  far  in  advance  of  all 
other  nations  in  this  respect.  It  would  have  been  only  neces- 
sary to  wait ;  and  the  ripe  fruit  would  of  its  own  accord  have 
fallen  in  its  lap. 

The  country  was  then  always  conceived  as  some  great 
human  moral  force,  and  it  is  characteristic  that  in  the  ease  of 
two  out  of  every  three  patriotic  poems  in  the  "Universal  Book 
of  German  Drinking  Songs''  the  note  is  a  longing  for  liberty. 
All  the  efforts  then  made  to  bring  about  a  united  Germany 
were  identical  with  the  general  efforts  of  nations  toward  lib- 
erty and  progress.  In  those  happy  days  the  German  ideal  and 
the  ideal  of  humanity  were  inseparably  bound  up  together. 
Then  came  the  time  when  everything  changed,  and  the  tine 
ballad  that  Treitschke  -  tells  us  was  often  sung  in  his  young 
days  was  forgotten : 

1  H.  V.  Treitschke,  "Zum  Gediiehtnis  des  groszen  Krieges"  ("In  Mem- 
ory of  the  (ireat  War"),  §28.  This  •'truly  German"  is  already  found 
in  the  earliest  (Jerman  novel  in  Grimmelshausen's  "Sirapliziasimus"  (III, 
4 )  :  "Of  the  German  hero  who  would  conquer  the  whole  world  and 
establish  peace  among  the  nations." 

^  Heinrich  von  Treitachke's  "Zum  Gefliiohtnis  des  grossen  Krieges"' 
("In  Memory  of  the  Great  War"),  p.  28.  This  "genuinely  German" 
idea   occurs    in   the   oldest   German    novel,    in    Grimmelshausen's    "Sim- 


LEGITDIATE  INDIVIDUALISM  OF  NATIONS      361 

"Wenn  die  Deutselien  Deutsche  werden, 
Griinden  sie  das  Reich  auf  Erden, 
Das  der  Welt  den  Frieden  gibt." 

("When  the  Germans  become  Germans,  then  will  they  found  that 
empire  upon  earth  which  will  give  the  world  peace.") 

"Such  innocent  thoughts  are  ours  no  longer."  Yet  the  old 
saying  about  force  being  overcome  by  force  is  no  longer  alto- 
gether true ;  and  if  one  thing  is  certain  in  this  world  it  is  the 
fact  that  the  only  way  in  which  a  people  can  conquer  to-day 
is  by  concentrating  all  its  strength  on  peaceful  competition 
between  nation  and  nation,  and  endeavoring  to  attain  a  posi- 
tion from  which  it  will  be  able  to  give  the  world  peace.  The 
time  lias  come  when  brute  force  no  longer  decides,  but  capacity 
for  civilization. 

§  180. — German  Adaptahility 

It  can  easily  be  shown  that  Avhat  underlies  Germany's 
progress  is  adaptability.  The  (rerman  virtue  of  being  inter- 
ested in  other  countries  besides  Germany,  which  makes  Ger- 
mans virtually  citizens  of  the  world,  accounts  for  the  fact 
that  Germany  is  the  birthplace  of  comparative  esthetics  and 
philology  as  well  as  of  scientific  geograph3^  A  century  ago 
we  in  Germany  already  possessed  the  best  geographical  jour- 
nal, and  we  still  have  the  best  maps  and  atlases  and  most 
descriptions  of  travels.  It  is  owing  to  the  German's  desire 
to  become  acquainted  with  the  literature  of  all  nations  and  to 
his  knowledge  of  foreign  languages  that  Shakspere,  Ibsen, 
Tolstoy,  and  Braudes  are  better  loved  and  perhaps  better 
understood  than  anywhere  else  in  the  world ;  that  we  have  a 
Shakspere  Society  and  a  Dante  Societj^  and  ten  English  books 
are  translated  into  German  for  one  German  book  which  is 
translated  into  English.  Just  because  the  German  has  ab- 
sorbed all  the  world's  ideas  and  deepened  them  was  it  pos- 

plizisHimuH"    (III,  4).  "Of  the  (Jerman  hero  who  overcame  tlie  whole 
world  and  will  establish  peace  among  all  nations." 


362  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

sible  for  a  Luther  to  succeed  a  Huss,  a  Kepler  a  Galilei,  a 
Helmholtz  a  Faraday,  and  a  Kant  a  Berkeley.  How  much 
do  we  not  owe  in  Germany  to  the  conceptions  of  such  genuises 
as  Darwin,  Jenner,  Lister,  and  Pasteur?  Yet  in  all  their 
special  branches  of  science  we  in  Germanj^  have  now  pro- 
gressed at  least  as  far  as  the  countries  where  their  discoveries 
were  made. 

The  special  qualities  which  in  the  ideal  Gennany  the  in- 
vestigator and  the  man  of  art  or  letters  used  to  benefit  in  the 
Germany  of  ideals  still  benefit  the  technician  and  the  com- 
mercial man  in  the  material  Germany  of  to-day.  Our  techni- 
cal science  is  capable  of  picking  up  ideas  everywhere  and  of  de- 
veloping them.  Hardly  had  Marconi  discovered  wireless  tele- 
graphy than  the  Telefunken  (Wireless)  system  was  working 
admirably.  France  may  for  a  time  have  been  ahead  of  us  in 
the  construction  of  motor-cars  and  aeroplanes,  but  our  techni- 
cians have  long  since  caught  up  with  her.  We  did  not  invent 
submarines,  but  at  present  ours  seem  to  be  the  most  serviceable. 

Our  commercial  men  proved  no  less  adaptable.  Unlike 
British  merchants,  they  did  not  compel  ^  foreign  nations  to 
learn  their  language,  but  learned  the  language  of  those  with 
whom  they  wished  to  trade.  Again,  they  did  not  try  to  force 
their  goods  on  the  foreigner,  but  manufactured  whatever  spe- 
cial articles  each  country  needed.  Even  in  quite  minor  mat- 
ters, such  as  fancy  goods  and  light  fiction,  we  readily  took  the 
vast  number  of  hints  which  we  picked  up  all  over  the  world 

1  Not  literal  compulsion,  which  England  has  hardly  ever  applied  in 
such  a  case,  but  the  much  more  effectual  negative  and  passive  resist- 
ance, which,  being  based  on  incapacity  for  acquiring  anything  foreign, 
could  naturally  never  be  laid  aside,  and  for  this  very  reason  irresistibly 
forced  others  to  learn  English.  Precisely  because  we  do  not  pos- 
sess this  innate  passivity,  we  resort  to  measures  of  compulsion  which 
must  of  necessity  fail.  Time  was  when  any  one  was  glad  to  be  able  to 
speak  German  in  Petrograd,  Brussels,  Warsaw,  Triest,  Budapest,  Copen- 
hagen, Prague,  and  Strasburg.  This  encouraging  symptom,  noticeable 
at  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century,  became  almost  automatically 
changed  into  its  opposite  since  we  attempted  to  force  Germanism  upon 
the  world. 


LEGITIMATE  INDIVIDUALISM  OF  NATIONS      363 

wherever  we  turned.     In  short,  there  was  nowhere  anything 
that  we  did  not  turn  to  good  account. 

Thus  did  the  German  adapt  himself,  and  because  of  his 
having  done  so,  Germany  has  progressed  until  in  a  sense  she  is 
now  the  most  up-to-date  nation  in  Europe.  Her  originality, 
in  short,  consists,  as  already  said,  in  the  lack  of  a  certain 
kind  of  originality,^  that  kind  which  might  be  called  provin- 
cialism. And  for  that  future  which  is  to  unite  all  nations  to- 
gether nothing  augurs  better  than  this.  The  modern  "nihil 
me  alienum  puto"  is  absolutely  incompatible  with  the  old  idea 
of  originality.  It  was  the  proud  aim  of  our  approaching  vic- 
tory to  be  able  to  say,  knowing  what  it  meant  and  that  it  was 
true,  ' '  nothing  human  is  foreign  to  us, ' ' 

It  may  not  be  without  interest  to  recall  the  fact  that  such  a 
genius  as  Dostoyevsky,  in  his  political  writings  and  in  his  novel 
"Ein  Werdender,"  lays  claims  to  these  qualities  on  behalf  of 
Russia,  alleging  that  owing  to  her  being  still  comparatively 
primitive,  she  had  preserved  the  power  of  assimilating  foreign 
civilizations.  That  primitive  people  are  capable  of  much  in 
this  respect  has  certainly  been  proved  by  Japan,  which  in  an 
incredibly  short  time  has  assimilated  first  Chinese  and  then 
European  civilization.  This  may  perhaps  have  been  a  good 
thing  for  Russia  and  Japan,  but  not  for  the  world  and  for 
civilization  in  general. 

The  Russians  have  also  improved  and  developed  foreign 
inventions  and  ideas,  but  in  so  doing  have  as  yet  achieved 
nothing  of  world-wide  importance.  This  is  not  meant  as  a 
reproach,  but  merely  as  the  statement  of  a  fact.  It  may  be 
that  Tolstoy  will  mean  something  to  the  world  to  come,  but 
then  it  would  be  only  his  own  actual  experiences  which  would 
survive,  not  anything  based  on  some  one  else's  experience. 
Any  Russians  who  have  been  devoted  to  foreign  literature  and 

1  Dr.  Nieolai  uses  the  word  "ori^ji'ial'ty"  in  two  senses.  In  this  case 
it  has  more  the  sense  of  the  French  "un  original,"  an  eccentric  person. 
Nothing  is  more  difficult  to  render  tlian  an  English  word  with  a  Ger- 
man tail  and  an  umlaut  or  two  thrown  in. — Translator. 


364  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

ideas  have  never  risen  to  a  great  height.  The  Germans  alone 
have  grown  reall.v  great  on  "a  foreign  foundation."  As  Sir 
William  Ramsay  is  said  to  have  unfortunately  remarked, 
"They  do  not  steal  from  foreign  nations,"  but  adapt  from 
them,  transform  what  they  have  adapted,  and  then  return 
it  as  something  new  and  improved.  Let  us  hope  that  this  was 
what  Sir  William  Ramsay  meant.  At  any  rate,  once  the  hyp- 
notic effects  of  the  war  are  over,  this  is  the  sense  he  will  attach 
to  his  words.  In  a  centurj^  in  which  modern  means  of  com- 
munications have  literally  enabled  men  to  unite  together,  this 
German  capacity  for  continued  and  wide-spread  development 
and  improvement,  capacity  which  no  one  seriously  denies, 
would  have  made  central  Europe  also  the  center  of  Europe. 

§  131. — Overstraining  of  Adaptahility 

The  future  of  Europe,  indeed  perhaps  of  the  world,  seemed 
within  our  grasp.  And  we  threw  it  away  because — well, 
simply  because  we  also  have  the  defects  of  our  qualities. 
"Can  be  done,"  indeed,  and  "must  be  done"  often  mean  the 
same  thing,  and  any  one  who  can  adapt  himself  as  the  Germans 
can  must  do  so.  It  is  this  with  which  the  Germans  are  re- 
proached, or,  rather,  it  is  this  with  which  they  usually  re- 
proach themselves.  Thej'^  have  not  the  stubborn  tenacity  of 
the  Englishman,  who  gets  a  footing  everywhere  and  his  Eng- 
lish civilization  with  him.  They  are  easily  swamped  in  a 
foreign  nation,  and  they  like  what  is  foreign.  Readiness  to 
learn  and  capacity  for  learning  foreign  languages  lead  to 
fondness  for  using  foreign  words ;  and  as  we  did  not  trouble 
much  about  trifles,  we  did  not  consider  it  absolutely  essential 
to  have  fashions  of  our  own. 

There  was  no  harm  in  all  this,  if  also  no  particular  good; 
and  in  any  case  it  was  of  no  real  importance.  Now,  however, 
we  are  going  decidedly  too  far  in  our  adaptability,  for  we 
would  fain  adopt  not  only  foreign  virtues,  but  even  foreign 
vices.  In  short,  we  are  so  eager  to  be  like  the  foreigner  that 
we  shall  end  by  being  forced  to  throw  overboard  the  root 


LEGITIMATE  INDIVIDUALISM  OF  NATIONS     365 

principle  underlying  our  national  habits.  Other  nations  were 
political  nations;  we  want  to  be  so,  too.  They  had  colonies; 
we  also  want  to  have  some.  They  were  jingoes  and  nation- 
alists, and  therefore  we  thought  we  must  also  be  jingoes  and 
nationalists.  In  short,  because  others  are  retrograde,  we  think 
we  must  become  so ;  and  with  the  pious  fidelity  of  copyists  we 
are  endeavoring  out  of  the  patriotic  vanity  of  the  French, 
England's  obstinate  isolation,  Spain's  national  pride,  and 
Russia's  brutality  to  forge  a  coat  of  mail  to  cover  up  our 
former  aspirations.  It  almost  seems  as  if  we  had  succeeded 
in  this,  and  as  if  Theodor  Vischer's  lines  had  come  true: 

Was  der  Corse  begann,  das  hat  der  Marker  voUendet; 
Robe  Gewalt  fiir  Recbt,  ist  die  Parole  die  Zeit.^ 

This  is  bad,  and  however  justifiably  ^\e  may  pose  as  victors, 
we  shall  not  permanently  succeed  in  making  the  world  believe 
that  we  have  done  otherwise  than  surrender  our  most  valuable 
possession  and  our  most  vital  weapons,  receiving  nothing  in 
exchange.  No  human  being  and  no  people  can  really  suffer  a 
sea  change  into  something  which,  after  all,  they  are  not. 
It  is  with  capacities  as  with  good  fortune;  a  man  either  has 
them  or  not,  and  whatever  he  strives  to  do  against  his  nature 
and  by  mere  force  of  will  is  never  anything  but  unreal  and 
ineffectual. 

Good  patriots  are  becoming  anxious  about  Germany  now, 
and  are  casting  a  glance  at  the  future ;  but  they  are  doing  so 
for  the  same  reason  as  the  Pan-Germanists  are  raising  an  out- 
cry. That  is,  they  fear  that  Germany  will  not  prove  capable 
of  asserting  her  own  individuality.  But,  then,  they  do  not 
consider  that  her  individuality  consists  in  brute  force,  but 
in  plastic  intelligence.     As  long  ago  as  1873  Dostoyevsky  ^  al- 

1  Friedrich  Theodor  Vischer's  "Epigranune  aus  Baden-Baden,"  pub- 
lished anonymously  in  18G7,  p.  27.  Vischer  was  a  German  estheticist. 
("What  tlie  Corsican  Napoleon  began,  the  Man  of  the  Marches  [Bis- 
marck] finished;  brute  force  for  right  is  the  watchword  of  the  day.") 

2  "Thoughts  on  Europe,"  in  Dostoyevsky's  "Political  Writings." 
1873. 


366  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

ways  far-seeing,  feared  some  such  sudden  reversion.  In  the 
Russian  periodical  "Grazdanin"  he  wrote  that  it  was  clear 
that  in  Germany,  after  her  recent  triumph  over  France,  the 
feeling  of  national  self-sufficiency  had  such  a  pitch  of  absurd- 
ity that  even  science  shoived  traces  of  jingoism.  A  year  later, 
when  this  new  tendency  was  actually  noticeable,  Emil  du  Bois 
RejTnond,  the  well  known  Berlin  physiologist,  went  still 
further.  "Thorough  as  we  are  in  everything,"  he  said,  "let 
us  beware  against  falling  into  the  other  extreme  (of  which 
there  are  numberless  signs),  and  instead  of  being  a  nation 
which  used  to  be  likened  to  a  book-worm,  become  so  much  ab- 
sorbed in  politics  as  to  be  the  least  literary  of  all  the  great  civ- 
ilized nations."  ^ 

There  is  still  more  ground  for  this  fear  to-day.  It  is  a 
tragedy  that,  just  at  the  fateful  moment  when  Germanism 
seemed  destined  to  conquer,  indeed  it  might  be  said  to  save, 
the  world,  we  should  risk  losing  the  inheritance  bequeathed  to 
us  by  our  great  forefathers.  Such  hopes  for  the  future 
transcend  in  importance  anything  in  the  past.  The  German 
historian  Meineke  may  believe  that  "the  supposition  that 
cosmopolitan  and  national  conceptions  harmonize"  can  be 
set  aside  because  such  harmony  "was  not  always  present," 
which  no  one  denies.  But  the  very  notion  of  such  a  thing 
should  spur  us  on  to  make  every  effort  to  be  prepared  for  it, 
for  come  it  must.  All  Germany  would  need  to  do  would  be 
to  remember  her  old  traditions,  crystallized  by  Johann  Eduard 
Erdmann-  in  the  words,  "To  be  merely  German  is  anti-Ger- 
man." 

1  Address  delivered  before  the  Academy  of  Science  by  E.  du  bois  Rey- 
mond,  on  March  20,  1874. 

2  "Das  Nationalitatsprinzip"  ("The  Principle  of  Xationalty")  and 
"Ernste  Spiele"  ("Serious  play"),  in  J.  E.  Erdmann's  "Collected  Lec- 
tures." Fourth  ed.  1890,  originally  delivered  in  1862,  p.  221.  [Erd- 
mann was  a  German  theologian  and  philosophical  writer.  "Ernste 
Spiele"  are  essays.  His  "History  of  Philosophy"  has  been  translated 
into  English.] — lYanslator. 


LEGITIMATE  INDIVIDUALISM  OF  NATIONS      367 


4. — GERMAN    HUMANITY    AND    GERMAN    MILITARISM 

§  132.— What  Is  Militarism? 

The  word  militarism  comes  from  the  Latin  miles,  which  in 
turn  comes  from  mille  (thousand).  There  is  no  trace  of  con- 
tempt about  the  word,  as  there  is  about  "soldier"  (Soldat), 
which  means  Soldner  (mercenary) ;  it  merely  signifies  that 
a  man  is  one  of  thousands,  one  of  a  number.  There  is  some- 
thing in  the  word,  as  in  the  German  word  for  army  (Heer), 
which  may  be  said  to  mean  the  same  thing  as  people;  and  in 
the  form  "militia"  (Miliz)  this  meaning  has  been  preserved. 
Yet  now  militarism  is  often  used  to  denote  only  aberrations 
from  the  real  meaning  of  the  word;  for  instance,  the  fact 
that  armed  man  lords  it  over  a  man  unarmed.  Those  who 
use  the  word  in  this  sense  are  thinking  of  officers'  preroga- 
tives, of  compulsory  service  and  subordination,  or  of  smart 
uniforms;  but  they  are  also  thinking  of  a  wide-spread  organi- 
zation, working  without  a  hitch,  embracing  in  an  astounding 
manner  the  forces  of  an  entire  people,  and  likewise  of  glory 
and  contempt  of  death.  In  short,  it  is  possible  to  read  into 
the  word  militarism  either  a  fine  meaning  or  an  evil  one. 

All  that  concerns  us  is  the  sense  originally  attaching  to 
the  word,  the  belief  that  it  is  possible  to  achieve  something  in 
the  world  by  means  of  a  host  numbering  thousands,  in  other 
words  by  force.  Militarism  in  this  sense,  therefore,  is  a  par- 
ticular conception  of  the  world.  It  is  the  belief  that  animal 
struggle,  with  fangs  or  cannon,  can  do  more  than  human  strug- 
gle with  words  and  convictions. 

Now,  there  is  not  the  slightest  doubt  that  the  overwhelming 
majority  of  Germans  believe  this,  which  is  all  the  more  singular 
because,  as  explained  in  Chapter  I,  all  great  Germans  have 
hoped  for  the  victory  of  reason  and  anathematized  war.  Now, 
this  contradiction  must  be  explained,  and,  if  possible,  traced 
to  its  one  source. 

The  Germans  say  that  they  make  excellent  soldiers  simply 


368  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

because  the  German  does  everything  best,  and  that  this  is  a 
good  thing.  Other  nations  also  say  that  the  Germans  make 
excellent  soldiers,  only  they  tliink  that  this  is  because  people 
in  Germany  have  been  too  much  taken  up  with  soldiering,  and 
that  this  is  not  a  good  thing.  It  is  clear  that  here  again  every 
one  agrees  about  the  main  facts,  and  disagrees  only  as  to  the 
inferences  to  be  drawn  from  them. 

Yet  even  here  the  disagreement  is  not  hopeless,  for  probably 
no  Germans,  save  for  a  handful  of  Hotspurs,  believe  that  their 
martial  qualities  are  really  what  is  best  in  them  to-day.  The 
modem  German,  they  say,  can  certainly  fight  well,  just  as 
he  can  do  a  great  many  thing's  well ;  but  this  does  not  prevent 
him  from  doing  the  work  of  peace  as  admirably  as  he  would 
do  it  even  were  it  no  longer  necessary  to  appeal  to  arms.  Mili- 
tarism, in  short,  they  say,  is  only  a  kind  of  outside  husk  with 
which  German  all-round  capability  has  become  overgrown ; 
it  is  by  no  means  the  chief  characteristic  of  German  life,  as 
fanatical  German-haters  think,  ^loreover,  uniforms  are  only 
an  outer  cloak,  put  on  for  the  time  being,  but  afterward  to  be 
put  oE.  Beneath  this  cloak  is  the  real  kernel  of  German 
civilization.  The  word  "civilization"  is  then  more  closely 
defined  as  meaning  science,  particularly  chemistry,  manufac- 
tures, especially  iron  constructions,  trade,  and  more  particu- 
larly ready-made  clothing,  organization,  and  above  all  obedi- 
ence. 

Now,  it  is  far  from  easy  to  decide  in  detail  what  is  kernel 
and  what  is  husk,  for  we  have  gradually  come  to  realize 
that  nothing  in  this  world  is  due  to  mere  chance.  If  Belgium 
has  the  densest  system  of  railways  and  Denmark  most  news- 
papers ;  if  most  letters  and  telegrams  are  sent  in  England ; 
if  America  has  the  most  schools,  and  Bosnia  the  fewest;  if  it 
is  Serbia  in  which  the  largest  proportion  of  people  are  mar- 
ried and  in  Sweden  the  smallest — all  this  is  no  less  significant 
than  the  fact  that  Germany  and  France  have  the  largest  per- 
centage of  people  belonging  to  the  army  or  navy  (ten  and 
fourteen  per  thousand  respectively),  and  America  and  Swit- 


LEGITIMATE  INDIVIDUALISM  OF  NATIONS      369 

zerland  the  smallest  (one  and  five  tenths  per  thousand  respec- 
tively). 

There  is  nothing  in  the  world  which  does  not  matter,  and 
everything  which  a  human  being  or  a  people  does  is  significant. 
The  attentive  observer  will  perceive,  at  any  rate,  the  essential, 
origial  cause  for  everything  which  the  man  in  the  street  de- 
scribes as  accidental,  and  thus  come  to  see  beauty  even  in  what 
considered  by  itself,  seems  ugly. 

German  militarism  must  be  considered  in  this  way;  and 
then,  even  in  this  distorted  form,  the  German  ideal  will  be 
clearly  perceivable ;  and  we  shall  see  the  path  which  is  lead- 
ing Germany  to  a  nobler  future. 

§  133. — German  Love  of  Liberty 

It  has  often  been  wrongly  thought  that  by  their  insistence 
on  civilization  and  militarism  being  one  and  the  same  thing, 
the  Germans  were  attempting  to  justify  one  by  the  other  or 
correct  one  by  the  other.  In  general  all  that  is  meant  is  that 
both  spring  from  the  same  root.  There  are  very  few  persons 
who  do  not  realize  that  an  upright  man  may  have  a  brother 
who  is  a  criminal ;  and  hence  they  think  that  if  one  side  of  the 
German  is  good,  the  other  must  likewise  be  so.  Persons  thus 
attempting  to  save  their  honor  of  course  tend  to  be  ridiculous, 
but  after  all  such  apparent  opposites  as  militarism  and  civiliza- 
tion are  really  only  different  forms  which,  as  a  biologist  would 
say,  ''German  substance"  can  assume.  To  endeavor  to  trace 
them  to  a  common  source  and  really  to  explain  Clausewitz  by 
Kant,  cannot  but  be  fascinating.^ 

All  the  peculiarities  said  to  distinguish  the  German  from 
other  nations,  whether  advantageously  or  not,  may  probably 

1  See  "Kants  Finfliise  auf  die  deutsche  Kultur"  ("Kant's  Influence 
on  German  Civilization"),  by  H.  Cohen.  Official  address  at  Marburg, 
1883.  Diimler:  Berlin,  p.  31.  But  Coben  did  not  go  deeply  into  the 
question,  and  in  order  to  overcome  the  difficulty  of  making  the  contents 
of  the  Peace  Book  agree  with  those  of  the  War  Book  he  makes  the  far 
from  satisfactory  statement  that  the  one  dealt  with  principles  and  the 
other  was  emnirical. 


370  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

be  traced  to  his  strongly  marked  sense  of  individuality.  In 
the  most  ancient  times,  as  Tacitus  tells  us,  this  found  expres- 
sion in  love  of  liberty,  and  also  in  an  umnistakeable  thirst  for 
vengeance,  about  which  we  find  a  great  deal  in  the  writings 
of  the  Roman  historian  Velleius  Paterculus.  Most  of  all,  how- 
ever, it  showed  itself  in  excesses,  a  fa<jt  which  both  these  writ- 
ers confirm.  Kleist's  superlatively  fine  description  of  the 
Battle  of  Hermann  shows  all  these  un-German  characteristics 
in  chaotic  savagery.^  Purged  of  all  impurities,  they  reappear 
in  Luther's  defiant  saying,  "Hier  stehe  ich;  ich  kann  nicht 
anders."  ^  The  impression  of  German  strength  is  merely  en- 
hanced if  we  think  of  Galilei,  that  other  great  reformer,  who 
likewise  ** could  do  naught  else,"  yet  merely  murmured,  "Ep- 
pur  si  muove."  Galilei's  achievement  may  have  been  greater 
and  of  more  permanent  value  for  mankind,  but  Luther  strikes 
us  as  having  been  humanly  finer  at  that  particular  moment. 

The  Germans  of  that  day  were  a  savage  and  self-willed  folk, 
and  tended  to  become  still  more  so  owing  to  the  conditions  of 
their  country.  Whoever  wished  to  settle  in  Germany,  the 
land  of  forests,  cleared  a  few  acres  for  himself,  and  squatted 
down  thereupon,  not  troubling  about  any  one  or  anything  else. 
It  is  characteristic  that  in  a  German  village  a  house  and  its 
surrounding  fields  are  quite  complete  in  themselves,  and 
that  nowhere  else  in  the  world  are  there  such  straggling,  and 
therefore  such  large,  villages  as  in  Germany.  And  as  it  be- 
gan with  the  house,  so  it  continued  up  the  ladder  of  social 
community.  True,  the  free  peasant  farmers,  except  in  Fries- 
land  and  the  fen  districts,  were  soon  degraded  into  subjection. 
But  every  knight  was  free;  in  most  eases  he  even  exercised 
the  lowest  judicial  functions,  and  could  announce  or  renounce 
quarrels  for  himself  and  his  men-at-arms.  Then  there  were 
the  free  cities  of  the  empire,  the  earldoms,  and  principalities, 
electorates  and  bishoprics;  for  since  the  Emperor  Otto  had 

1  Heinrieh  von  Kleist,  German  dramatist  of  the  Romantic  school. 
The  "Hermannschlact"  was  written   in    1810. — Translator. 

2  "Here  I  stand :     I  can  do  naught  else." 


LEGITIMATE  INDIVIDUALISM  OF  NATIONS      371 

played  off  the  church  against  the  principalities  there  were  ec- 
clesiastical principalities  even  in  Germany. 

All  these  miniature  states  had  their  own  laws  and  their 
own  coinage,  and  Germany  has  never  succeeded  in  freeing 
herself  from  this  absurd  caricature  of  her  quondam  love  of 
liberty.  Had  not  the  iron  hand  of  the  Corsican  smashed  up 
all  this  hallowed  tomfoolery,  who  knows  if  we  ourselves  would 
have  not  laid  hands  on  these  relics  of  the  Middle  Ages? 
There  is  something  in  provincialism  beyond  doubt  suited  to 
German  ways,  like  the  countless  associations  which  he  loves 
forming. 

Such  was  the  people  on  whom  the  new  era  burst,  with  its 
social  demands,  first  in  the  form  of  the  doctrine  of  the  broth- 
erhood of  man,  and  afterward  in  the  far  more  effective  form 
of  profitable  commercial  connections. 

§  134. — Three  Reasons  ivhy  Oerman  Lihertij  has  Taken  a 
Wrong  Turn 

When  solitary  human  beings  began  to  consort  and  associate 
together,  first  in  Europe  and  afterward  throughout  the  world, 
each  individual  family,  clan,  or  tribe,  as  the  case  might  be, 
could  not,  even  in  Germany,  continue  to  insist  on  keeping  to 
itself.  In  Germany,  however,  this  new  tendency  encountered 
very  peculiar  conditions — conditions  which  have  had  a  decisive 
influence  on  the  subsequent  development  of  German  mentality. 

First,  in  Prussia,  which  then  became  the  decisive  factor 
in  Germany's  history,  a  thin  surface  sprinkling  of  Teutons,  or, 
more  correctly  speaking,  Germans,  ruled  over  a  backward  and 
consequently  not  easily  led  mixture  of  races  consisting  of  Obo- 
trites,  Sorbians,  Varini,^  Wends,  Pruzzi,  Masurians,  Kaschubs, 
Poles,  Czechs,  Lithuanians,  and  Letts,  besides  other  Slav  peo- 
ples. It  was  quite  easy  to  maintain  the  comfortable  position 
of  overlords  here,  and  the  enslavement  of  the  subject  peoples 
made  Prussia  politically  very  prosperous.     Hence  the  belief 

^  German  Warnen,  a  Germanic  tribe  mentioned  by  Tacitus. — Trans- 
lator. 


372  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

arose  that  this  mode  of  government  left  nothing  to  be  de- 
sired. 

Secondly,  the  Renaissance,  which  caused  a  revival  of  liberty 
and  civilization  and  culture  in  general  throughout  Europe, 
subsequently  indirectly  led  to  a  diminution  of  the  church's 
power  in  Europe.  But  in  Germany,  owing  to  her  strong  re- 
ligious bent,  it  all  passed  off  in  religious  disputes;  and  the 
humanists  properly  so  called  never  had  much  influence 
there.  Hence  in  Germany  all  the  liberalizing  tendencies 
of  the  new  era  were  from  the  very  first  driven  into  a 
side  channel.  ]\Ien  were  so  taken  up  with  religious  liberty 
that  the}'  forgot  there  was  any  such  thing  as  civil  liberty; 
and  so  busy  were  they  about  spiritual  affairs  that  they  forgot 
all  about  intellectual  matters.  Above  all,  however,  Germany 
got  into  the  habit  of  considering  the  world  on  which  she,  after 
all,  depended  as  something  far  away  above  the  clouds,  and 
anything  ' '  on  this  side  "  or  "  here  below  "  as  of  small  moment. 

Thirdly,  in  his  comparative  indifference  with  regard  to  ter- 
restrial concerns  the  German  did  not  expect  anything  on  this 
earth  to  be  complete  or  perfect,  and  accordingly  he  frittered 
away  whatever  individuality  he  still  possessed  in  all  manner  of 
absurd  trivialities. 

Germany  thus  became  the  country  of  differences  in  rank. 
The  nobility  in  all  countries  used,  indeed,  to  lay  great  stress 
on  questions  of  etiquette;  but  whereas  in  the  rest  of  Europe 
the  knights  had  ceased  to  have  any  importance  as  a  separate 
class  as  early  as  the  fifteenth  century,  in  Germany  they  con- 
tinued a  recognized  class  on  into  the  nineteenth  century. 
Moreover,  ordinary  citizens  used  to  ape  the  nobility,  gilds 
and  corporations  flourished,  and  every  one  endeavored  to  ob- 
tain some  rank,  position,  title,  or  order,  which  would  confer 
on  him  a  distinction,  albeit  a  trifling  one,  above  his  fellows. 

The  ordinary  Philistine,  therefore,  satisfied  his  yearning  *'to 
be  somebody"  by  acquiring  stars  and  titles,  while  the  culti- 
vated German  found  satisfaction  for  his  aspirations  in  philoso- 
phy, which  accordingly  began  to  develop  along  specific  line^. 


LEGITLMATE  INDIVIDUALISM  OF  NATIONS      373 

Thus,  while  British  and  French  philosophy  turned  increas- 
ingly toward  practical  questions,  German  philosophy  became 
more  and  more  abstract.^  What  German  genius  needed  was 
that  in  the  free  world  of  thought  each  person  should  be  able 
to  be  a  law  unto  himself,  while  in  the  world  of  hard  facts  he 
was  forced  to  bow  the  knee  to  his  superiors.  A  noteworthy 
instance  of  this  is  Kant,  than  whom  no  one  followed  a  more 
independent  line  of  thought  and  who  yet  lived  in  dependence 
on  others.  He  who,  as  Karl  Lehrs  ^  says,  wrote  the  Marseil- 
laise of  philosophy,  gave  way  afterward  in  theological  ques- 
tions, and  disavowed  Fiehte's  doctrines  so  as  not  to  incur  the 
suspicion  of  atheism.  Kant  was  then  old,  and  therefore  we 
shall  not  blame  him,  but  only  those  who  forced  him  to  take  such 
a  step. 

It  was  Kant's  philosophy  and  none  other  which  decided 
Germany's  future.  In  answer  to  liberty  he  brought  forward 
transcendental  idealism,  and  in  answer  to  subjection  empirical 
realism,  urging  that  both  transcendental  idealism  and  subjec- 
tion were  equally  justified  and  equally  necessary.  We  may 
think  of  this  dual  answer  as  we  please ;  we  may  urge  that  the 
(juestion  ought  not  to  have  been  put  so ;  and  we  may  also  con- 
sider Kant  or  one  of  his  followers  to  have  succeeded  in  their 
attempt  to  bring  about  harmony  by  means  of  dialectics.  The 
fa(!t  remains  that  in  practice  this  "antinomy"  ^  was  treated  in 
most  uu-Kantian  fashion.  Men  learned  to  find  in  transcen- 
dental philosophy  satisfaction  for  their  aspirations  after  lib- 

1  V  A  I-ange.  in  his  "<jeschiclite  dea  Materialismus"  ("History  of 
Matvrialjf<m") ,  published  in  1875,  says,  "Those  countries  which  are  the 
home  of  modern  philoso])hy  are  turnintr  to  practical  life,  while  meta- 
physics are  left  to  (Jermany."  Book  11,  pp.  417-4U8  of  this  work  are 
sin<nilarly    interesting. 

-■•Die  Piiiliisiiphie  und  Kant  gegeniiher  dem  Jahre  1848"  ("Kant 
and  Pliilusophy  alutut  tlie  Year  1848"),  Ly  Karl  Lehrs,  1886.  "Altpreus- 
sische   -Monat.Hchrift,"  XXXII,  p.   01. 

3. Antinomy  is  a  Kantian  term,  meaning  an  apparent  conflict  of  rea- 
son with  itself.  Thus  it  may  be  argued,  apparently  equally  reason^ 
ably,  tiiat  the  universe  is  infinitely  vast  and  that  it  has  spatial  limits 
—  Iransiator. 


374  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

erty,  while  in  other  respects  they  became  politicians  of  the  most 
material  order. 

This  crass  inconsistency  is  the  illegitimate  offspring  of  the 
thrice-outraged  Teutonic  longing  for  liberty.  Once  it  was 
outraged  by  being  in  the  bonds  of  slavery,  once  by  a  Christi- 
anity that  had  become  abstract,  and  once  by  misinterpreted 
transcendental  philosophy ;  and  the  inconsistency  runs  through 
the  whole  of  German  intellectual  life. 

In  fact  and  practice  the  German's  notion  of  civilian  liberty, 
a  notion  which  had  already  had  to  suffer  from  the  "liberty  of  a 
true  Christian,"  gave  way  for  good  and  all  to  the  "intelligible 
liberty  of  a  philosopher."  In  practice  he  became  brutal  and 
the  reverse  of  free ;  yet  Germany,  as  far  as  thought  was  con- 
cerned, continued  the  freest,  and,  we  may  say  with  pride,  the 
most  humane  country. 

§135.— *'T/ie  Absolute" 

As  this  liberty,  however,  existed  only  as  far  as  thought  and 
ideas  were  concerned,  and  was  consequently  unlimited,  it  de- 
generated. Germany,  to  put  it  briefly,  became  the  land  of 
absolutism.  It  was  believed  that  there  was  an  absolute  lib- 
erty, an  absolute  happiness,  and  an  absolute  knowledge.  It 
was  believed  that  a  formula  had  been  discovered  by  which 
men  could  be  made  free,  happy,  and  wise  even  against  their 
will ;  and  it  is  no  mere  chance  that  German  philosophy  should 
have  produced  dogmatic  Marxianism,  which  advocated  a  fu- 
ture state  to  be  absolutely  governed,  while  at  the  same  time 
German  social  democracy  should  be,  generally  speaking,  the 
most  faithful  reflection  of  the  German  people,  which  is  com- 
pounded of  doctrinaire  idealism  and  practical  militarism. 

Kant  believed  that  by  setting  up  the  categorical  imperative 
of  duty  he  could  create  a  moral  code  which  would  be  at  once 
absolute  and  binding  on  all  human  beings  alike.  Later  on 
Karl  Marx  hoped  to  endow  the  whole  world  with  happiness 
and  prosperity  by  first  overthrowing  it  and  then  reconstruct- 
ing it  on  right  principles.     Similarly  the  Germans  really  and 


LEGITDIATE  INDIVIDUALISM  OF  NATIONS      375 

honestly  believe  that  the  world  would  be  happy  were  it  forced 
to  do  their  bidding.  We  have  carried  organization  to  a  high 
pitch,  and  we  think  the  whole  world  could  not  but  be  content 
were  it  similarly  organized.  "Do  or  die"  is  a  German  pro- 
verb, and  the  pleasing  saying,  "Well,  if  you  won't  be  my 
brother,  I  11  bash  your  head  in ' '  has  become  another  German 
proverb. 

And  the  German  thinks  this  is  the  receipt  by  which  he  can 
redeem  the  world.  He  may  be  wrong,  but  that  does  not  alter 
the  fact  that  this  is  his  belief.  This  being  the  case,  the  Ger- 
man, although  not  really  more  uneducated  or  uncivilized  than 
the  Briton  or  the  Frenchman,  coolly  comes  along  with  his 
cannon  and  his  bombs,  having  made  serious  preparations  be- 
forehand for  this  as  if  it  were  the  most  important  business  of 
his  life. 

A  Frenchman  will  never  understand  this ;  he  is  too  frivolous 
and  materialistic.  He  thinks  that  a  dead  man  is  just  a  dead 
man,  an  asphyxiating  bomb  is  just  an  asphyxiating  bomb, 
and  so  on;  and  he  orders  his  life  accordingly.  But  the  Ger- 
man knows  that  behind  both  there  lurks  something  else — an 
idea.  In  his  opinion  cannon  and  bombs  are  something  where- 
with he  is  to  pursue  his  civilizing  mission ;  hence  he  plays 
with  such  things  as  innocently  as  children  with  crackers. 
The  ideas  lurking  behind  the  things  themselves  are  the  excuse 
for  everything,  and  behind  the  bombs  every  German  seeks  and 
finds  what  he  wants  to  find.  The  Christian  finds  his  God, 
the  philosopher  his  Kant,  the  philanthropist  his  love  of  hu- 
manity, and  the  Philistine  universal  order;  and  the  quint- 
essence of  all  these  "moral  ideas"  is  always  the  same — the 
proud  words,  "We  '11  give  them  a  good  drubbing." 

Led  by  force,  the  German  has  grown  pious  and  good,  rich 
and  contented,  and  because  he  has  learned  to  believe  in  the 
absolute,  he  thinks  that  whatever  is  good  for  his  own  country 
must  also  be  good  in  itself  and  can  in  time  be  thrashed  into 
people.  Besides  this,  Germany  has  become  great  because 
from  everywhere  she  has  taken  what  is  good,  and  therefore 


376  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

she  would  only  be  paying  a  debt  of  gratitude  by  forcing  her 
virtues — order  and  organization — upon  others.  The  one 
thing  she  overlooks,  however,  is  that  no  one  can  endure  to 
accept  such  gifts  unless  of  his  own  free  will. 

Here  we  have  certainly  an  instance  of  strange  things  com- 
ing to  pass;  and  even  if  the  direct  introduction  of  German 
order  into  Belgium  meets  with  difficulties,  yet  Germany  is  in- 
directly, perhaps  even  against  her  will,  forcing  the  whole 
world  to  organize  after  the  fashion  of  the  Germans.  The 
world  sees  that  German  organization  has  answered  well  in 
war,  and  it  tries  to  imitate  it.  A  very  great  deal  will  cer- 
tainly be  organized  on  German  lines.  After  the  war  we  shall 
see  Avhether  this  is  a  good  thing  or  not,  for  with  foreign  na- 
tions likewise  working  their  hardest,  the  only  result  can  be 
that  the  German  will  have  to  work  even  harder  than  before 
in  order  to  keep  up  with  the  keener  competition.  It  may  be 
very  salutary,  but  it  is  none  the  less  regrettable  that  five 
million  people  had  to  die  in  order  that  this  result  may  be 
brought  about  in  Europe  by  militarism. 

Still  more  regrettable  is  it,  however,  that,  in  order  to  achieve 
it,  German  humane  aspirations  should  have  become  so  much 
misdirected.  The  fact  must  certainly  not  be  ignored  that 
w^orship  of  success  and  lust  of  power  have  had  something  to 
do  with  the  rise  of  what  we-  call  Prussian  militarism,  yet  this 
cannot  be  of  more  than  secondary  importance.  The  main 
and  decisive  cause  seems  to  me  to  have  been  misdirected  hu- 
mane aspirations  which,  the  Germans,  anticipating  events, 
wanted  to  create  that  world-organization  the  necessity  for 
which  is  obvious ;  only,  unfortunately,  they  wanted  to  do  this 
not  by  the  power  of  reason,  but  by  that  of  force. 

§  136. — Bethink  Yourselves! 

There  is  a  w^onderful  picture  by  Anselm  von  Feuerbach,^ 
"The  Battle  of  the  Amazons,"  which  hangs  in  the  Nuremberg 

1  1829-1890.  Feuerbach  represents  modern  German  classical  paint- 
ing.— Translator. 


LEGITIMATE  INDIVIDUALIS.AI  OP  NATIONS     377 

picture  gallery,  but  has  never  taken  the  fancy  of  the  public, 
to  whom  it  seemed  too  lifeless  to  represent  a  battle.  Yet 
ever\'  fiber  is  brimful  of  the  truest  life.  Men  and  women  are 
seen  interlaced  in  an  extraordinary  manner,  and  it  is  impos- 
sible to  say  whether  this  is  due  to  love  or  hatred.  Thus  a 
boy  is  shown  kneeling  before  a  woman.  Is  this  because  of 
her  beauty,  or  was  he  knocked  down  by  a  passing  horse? 
Both  sides  are  holding  back  their  weapons  and  looking  each 
other  in  the  face,  and  if  they  lift  them  up  now,  it  will  be  in 
love.  Then  in  the  center  two  are  embracing  each  other  as  in 
the  very  ecstasy  of  love,  and  j^et  in  their  hands  an  ax  and  a 
lance  are  flashing.  In  the  foreground  lies  a  maiden  mortally 
wounded,  but  her  outstretched  arm  is  holding  back  the  man, 
even  as  a  woman  might  seek  to  detain  the  husband  hastening 
to  leave  her  after  the  nuptial  night.  And  on  all  sides  are 
yearning  looks,  enraptured  gestures;  everj^where,  in  short, 
love,  which  seems  turned  to  hatred,  and  which  is  in  reality 
combat. 

I  could  not  help  thinking  of  this  picture  when  our  merry, 
laughing  German  youths  left  for  the  front.  They  did  not 
hate  the  enemy,  as  did  our  ill-advised  intellectuals,  and  they 
loved  the  world  throughout  its  length  and  breadth ;  and  with 
this  vague  love  of  the  world  and  of  mankind  in  their  hearts 
they  went  forth  to  battle. 

In  order  to  understand  how  ciniell}'  hard  these  gentle  souls 
have  become  ' '  at  the  front, ' '  I  was  forced  to  think  of  ICleist  s 
Penthesilea}  He,  too,  shows  how  closely  akin  is  love  to  hate, 
and  the  extremes  to  which  misguided  love  can  go.  Penthcsi- 
lea,  the  love-sick  Amazonian  woman,  is  determined  to  possess 
Achilles,  but  dazzled  by  false  pride,  she  marches  upon  him, 
surrounded  by  her  yelping  dogs,  with  her  elephants  and  all 
the  pomp  and  circumstance  of  glorious  war.  And  yet 
Achilles  was  willing  to  surrender  voluntarily  to  her. 

1  Heinrich  von  Kleist,  German  romantic  dramatic  writer.  "Pen- 
thesilea,"  pub.  1808,  is  one  of  the  plays  by  which  he  is  still  remembered. 
— Translator. 


378  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

Even  so  the  German  Army,  with  its  42-centimeter  Morsers, 
its  asphyxiating  bombs,  its  poisonous  gases,  and  its  submarines, 
is  marching  upon  the  young  world  that  is  ready  to  accept  and 
believe  the  old  German  legend  of  the  humanity  of  man. 

Penthesilea  murders  the  youthful  son  of  the  Gods,  and  dies 
as  a  result  of  having  done  so.  But  we  do  not  wish  the  young 
divine  idea  to  die,  nor  yet  that  Germany  should  perish.  There 
is  still  time;  therefore,  ye  Germans,  bethink  yourselves!  Be- 
think j^ourselves  of  your  own  selves ! 


CHAPTER  XI 

Altruism 

1. — overcoming  pessimism 
§  137. — Germany's  lilission 

That  men  must  and  do  associate  with  one  another  no  one 
will  den3\  The  only  question  is  whether  their  association  is 
best  promoted  by  fighting  one  another  or  by  helping  one  an- 
other, and  whether  love  or  hate,  uuseltishness  or  selfishness, 
right  or  might,  prevail  or  ought  to  prevail  in  the  world. 

No  human  being  is  so  utterly  devoid  of  all  humanity  as  not 
to  fancy,  at  any  rate  in  his  best  mood,  that  it  is  permissible 
to  believe  in  such  things  as  right  and  unselfishness,  love  and 
mutual  aid ;  but  afterward  away  he  goes  and  acts  as  if  he  did 
not  believe  in  them  at  all.  Indeed,  he  does  not  believe  in 
them  as  realities,  but  in  his  haughty  infatuation  imagines  they 
are  some  ideal  creation  of  his  own,  something  which  can  ac- 
cordingly be  laid  aside  at  will  as  soon  as  it  is  no  longer  com- 
patible with  practical  politics.  Now,  there  is  nothing  on 
earth  more  contemptible  than  practical  politics  when  they 
conflict  with  idealism. 

Germany,  as  I  hinted  at  the  beginning  of  the  last  chapter, 
is  here  in  a  peculiarly  difficult  position.  She  dreams  herself 
into  a  moral  world,  and  appeals  to  the  idealism  of  a  man  such 
as  Kant,  and  she  acts  in  a  tangible  world  and  pursues  prac- 
tical politics  after  the  manner  of  such  a  man  as  Bismarck. 
The  gulf  between  these  two,  however,  seems  still  bridgable. 
But  Kant  degenerated  into  Cohen,^  and  Bismarck  into  Bern- 

1  It  is  characteriatic  that  Cohen  should  be  almost  of  the  school  of 
i^erlteley. 

379 


380  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

hardi ;  and  just  because  the  German  has  conceived  the  loftiest 
possible  conception  of  morality  did  he  depart  from  them  ut- 
terly in  practice.  Perhaps,  indeed,  he  could  not  do  otherwise. 
"Whoever  endeavors  to  square  the  circle,  very  easily  manages 
to  forget  even  his  rule  of  three. 

Nevertheless,  efforts  which  in  themselves  have  no  prospect 
of  success  are  scarcely  ever  quite  in  vain.  Thus  when  it  be- 
came impossible  to  find  a  rational  expression  for  numbers,  the 
new  science  of  irrational  numbers  arose.  Similarly,  idealism 
was  not  in  vain.  Thus,  when  it  became  impossible  to  act 
morally  on  the  basis  of  idealism,  the  duty  arose  of  seeking 
another  basis  of  action.  If  Kantian  German^',  without  being 
false  to  her  name,  became  imbued  with  "practical  polities" 
to  the  very  marrow  of  her  bones,  this  merely  proves  that  we 
are  not  meant  to  expend  our  energies  in  expressing  pious  as- 
pirations, that  the  most  magniticent  castle  in  the  air  can 
never  hold  out  against  terrestrial  attack,  and  that  morality 
based  on  ideals  simply  has  no  solid  basis. 

The  collapse  of  idealism,  which  became  manifest  in  1914, 
must  be  our  justification  for  seeking  some  such  solid  basis. 
This  collapse  occurred  just  when  all  discerning  persons 
considered  it  an  intellectually  incomprehensible  anachronism ; 
for  this  very  reason  it  has  proved  more  forcibly  than  any 
past  event  that  the  ordinai*y  idealistic  morality  is  whollj^  in- 
adequate, since  it  failed  to  make  its  followers  act  morally. 
This  applies  to  Kantian  and  Christian  morality  alike,  whether, 
as  Kant  will  have  it,  morality  is  to  be  compared  only  with  the 
star-spangled  heavens,  or  whether,  as  the  church  teaches,  it 
is  above  the  heavens. 

No  nation  in  the  world  has  more  cause  to  set  oft*  in  quest  of 
this  new  earthly  morality  than  G'ermany,  for  none  has  set  up 
such  high  moral  pretensions.  It  may  be,  however,  that  those 
who  ascend  to  great  heights  must  first  be  profoundly  abased. 
Jena  may  have  been  necessary  that  Leipsic  might  occur ;  and  it 
may  also  have  been  necessary  to  declare  that  right  was  a  scrap 
of  paper  in  order  that  mankind  might  be  induced  to  seek  some 


ALTRUISM  881 

better  guaranty.  "Were  this  to  be  so,  then  even  this  war 
might  be  something  which  future  generations  would  gladly 
remember  as  the  birth-throes  of  a  new  society,  which,  as 
Browning  put  it  in  "By  the  Fireside,"  "forwards  the  gen- 
eral deed  of  men,"  rightly  thinking  that  in  so  saying  he  has 
said  the  most  that  can  be  said  of  any  event. 

Perhaps,  however,  no  people  in  the  world  is  so  well  adapted 
as  the  Germans  to  discover  this  new  social  order,  because  of 
the  training  they  have  received  from  two  such  contradictions 
as  "Kant's  idealism  and  Bismarck's  practical  politics,"  both 
of  which  collapsed  in  this  war  because  there  was  no  connection 
between  them.  We  may  now  consider  it  Germany's  future 
work  to  reunite  these  apparentlj^  incompatible  characteristics 
of  hers,  which  have  already  been  shown  to  be  of  common 
origin ;  but  to  do  this  work  she  must  shake  herself  free  from 
the  vague  and  indefinite  aspirations  forced  upon  her  from 
without. 

That  this  is  possible  and  that  firmly  fixed  ideal,  based  on 
solid  facts,  are  conceivable,  it  is  the  purpose  of  the  present 
chapter  to  prove.  This  natural  morality,  as  it  might  be  called, 
will  one  day  become  a  reality;  and  it  seems  as  if  its  day  were, 
so  to  speak,  predestined  to  dawn  in  Germany.  And  this  not- 
withstanding the  events  of  the  last  half-century,  but  because 
of  the  peculiar  temperament  of  the  Germans  themselves. 
Then  Germany,  that  terra  nehulosa  in  which  the  sun  can  yet 
shine  with  such  wondrous  clearness,  will  have  fulfilled  her 
mission,  per  aspera  ad  astra.  That  mission  does  not  consist 
in  sending  calico  to  Bagdad,  but  in  giving  the  world  peace. 
It  may,  I  grant,  seem  foolhardy  to  cherish  any  such  hope  in 
the  midst  of  tlie  unparalleled  horrors  of  this  war,  and  many 
persons  will  rather  incline  to  agree  with  ITcinricli  Mann.^ 
when  lie  took  as  a  motto  for  his  book,  "This  nation  is  hope- 
less." 

Still,  it  is  better  to  be  optimistic  than  in  too  great  haste  to 
abandon  our  only  hope.     Even   1   fully  admit   the  immense 

1  Contemporary   (■'erman    writer. — Translator. 


382  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

power  of  those  who  have  made  the  progress  of  a  whole  nation 
center  round  the  sale  of  calico  in  Bagdad;  and  I,  too,  am 
well  aware  that  self-knowledge  cannot  be  attained  save  in  a 
hard  school.  But  somehow  or  other  it  will  come  to  pass  that 
the  German  again  becomes  German,  and  in  another  fifty  years 
there  will  again  be  a  Germany  that  realizes  her  own  true 
sphere,  and  whose  pride  is  in  her  own  characteristics  and  not 
in  her  armaments. 

For  at  all  times  it  has  been  believed,  even  by  those  who  have 
not  "dipt  into  the  future,  far  as  human  eye  could  see,"  that 
the  war-drum  must  one  day  throb  no  longer  and  the  battle-flag 
be  furled," 

In  the  Parliament  of  man,  the  Federation  of  the  world. 

There  the  commonsense  of  most  shall  hold  a  fretful  realm  in  awe, 

And  the  kindly  earth  shall  slumber,  lapt  in  universal  law. 

§  138. — The  New  Empire 

Some  semblance  of  justice,  indeed,  is  weaving  and  working 
in  all  this  murder  and  horror.  It  all  depends  whether  we  can 
see  this  semblance.  Man  to-day  lies  bound  upon  the  ground, 
with  the  war  vultures  devouring  his  vitals.  But  man  to-day 
need  be  no  less  optimistic  than  his  prototype,  Prometheus 
bound,  whom  nearly  two  thousand  five  hundred  years  ago 
-^schylus  made  say  that,  as  his  mother  Themis  had  taught 
him,  the  day  must  come  when  might  would  be  overcome  and 
wisdom  prevail. 

Prometheus,  it  is  true,  is  not  yet  unbound,  and  the  Titans 
and  the  Forces  of  all  still  bid  him  defiance;  but  we  may  con- 
sole ourselves  with  the  reflection  that  even  the  oldest  tragedian 
possessed  this  optimistic  belief.  For  the  secret  of  Prome- 
theus ^  is  no  cabalistic  or  magic  formula,  as  the  Scholastics 
used  to  believe;  rather  is  it  the  triumphant  faith  in  that 
future  when 

1  Prometheus  knows  a  secret,  and  Zeus  is  ready  to  free  him  if  he  re- 
veals it.  Prometheus,  however,  is  silent,  feeling  assured  that  even 
without  this  he  will  be  set  free. 


ALTRUISM  383 

The  man  remains, — 
Sceptreless,  free,  uneircumscribed,  but  man: 
Equal,  unclassed,  tribeless,  and  nationless, 
Exempt  from  awe,  worship,  degree,  the  king 
Over  himself;  just  gentle,  wise:  but  man. 

Time  was  when  the  gods  were  a  savage,  primeval  folk,  and 
their  "peace"  was  based  only  "on  dark  Fate's  perpetual 
night";  that  is,  not  upon  free  understanding,  but  on  natural 
compulsion,  which  is  independent  of  all  personality.  Yet  per- 
sonality prevailed,  first,  because  of  the  selfishness  of  tyranni- 
cal Zeus,^  who  represented  the  age  of  selfishness  and  war  in 
which  ^sehylus  lived.  But  this  was  only  a  transition  stage, 
and  Pro-metheus,  who  endowed  the  world  with  the  beginnings 
of  all  science  and  all  art,  all  technical  knowledge  and  all  civili- 
zation, knows  that  these  forces  will  overthrow  the  kingdom  of 
selfishness  and  self-will,  and  that  the  conception  of  humanity 
will  then  prevail.  To  symbolize  this  conquest  of  self,  Pro- 
metheus is  to  be  free  if  another,  out  of  pure  love  of  man- 
kind, descends  into  Hades  and  sacrifices  himself  for  Prome- 
theus; that  is,  for  mankind. 

We  have  not  yet  reached  this  point.  War  still  goes  on, 
but  peace  will  come.  That  is  the  secret  of  Prometheus.  As- 
suredly he  will  be  free :  Either  Zeus  will  learn  to  understand 
the  sacred  mystery,  and  then  he  will  voluntarily  break  his 
brother's  bonds  in  sunder,  or  he  will  never  learn  to  honor 
Mother  Themis.-  Then  will  "Zeus  be  hurled  from  his 
throne,"  and  Prometheus  will  receive  "his  freedom,  long  de- 
sired and  long  delayed." 

What  is  man'clous  about  this  Prometheus  legend  of  Ji^schy- 
lus  is  the  instinctive  faith  in  the  progress  of  mankind — a  faith 
which  produces  that  optimism  which  is  ever  casting  a  glance 
forward  toward  the  future. 

1  /Eschylus  says  that  Zeus  "by  the  force  of  will  has  founded  a  new 
kingdom  in  the  domain  of  the  gods." 

•i  Themis  was  wedded  to  Zens,  to  whom  she  bore  the  Ffnrce.  She 
personilies  law  and  order,  and  was  worshiped  as  a  goddess  of  prophecy. 
— Translator. 


384  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

§  139. — Natural  Right 

The  pessimist  sees  nothing  but  a  meaningless  "up  and 
down"  and  "hither  and  thither"  in  history,  which  is  to  him, 
as  to  Schopenhauer/  merely  a  series  of  events,  a  nightmare 
of  the  human  race,  without  any  sort  of  system.  Yet  we  may 
proudly  say,  even  although  the  actual  basis  in  fact  for  such  a 
conception  has  but  lately  been  supplied  by  recent  natural 
science,  that  almost  all  mankind  have  always  been  optimists 
hitherto,  and  thus  unconsciously  adhered  to  the  conception 
of  evolution.  Except  for  Schopenhauer,  after  all  only  a  single 
person,  and  the  Sophists,  all  serious  thinkers  have  held  it 
true  that  the  world  might  rise  on  stepping-stones  of  its  dead 
self  to  higher  things.  Despite  their  imperfect  knowledge,  a 
certain  definite  scheme  of  evolution  could  be  traced.  They 
actually  believed  in  the  prevalence  of  a  law  which  was  grad- 
ually bringing  us  nearer  to  an  ideal,  and,  however  widely  their 
opinions  may  otherwise  have  differed,  all  sought  what  they 
desired  in  right.  All  followed  after  Heraclitus,  that  wise  man 
of  old,  who  proclaimed  that  what  nations  had  to  do  was  to 
light  for  the  right. 

Unhappily  these  efforts  have  taken  two  different  directions. 
Those  which  have  extended  in  the  so-called  idealistic  direction 
have  endeavored  to  bring  about  a  spiritual  kingdom,  the  king- 
dom of  God ;  the  others,  those  with  a  material  trend,  have 
endeavored  to  bring  about  social  evolution.  But  instead  of 
mutucjly  assisting  each  other,  these  two  tendencies  have  op- 
posed each  other;  and  what  is  now  needed  is  to  unite  them. 

Since  Heraclitus  and  ^schylus  proclaimed  struggle  and 
promised  victory,  mankind  has  taken  a  considerable  step  for- 
ward. True,  as  Deussen  says,  we  see  even  now  that  the 
'■principle  of  the  right  of  the  stronger,  which  has  been  dis- 
placed in  the  individual  countries,  is  the  only  one  still  pre- 

1  ''Die  Welt  ala  Wile  imd  Vorstellung"  ("The  World  as  Will  and  as 
Idea").  By  Artlmr  Schopenhauer,  1819.  Vol.  I,  §  35.  Cf.  also  tl<e 
same  work,  Vol.   II,  Chap.  38. 


ALTRUISM  385 

vailing  between  one  country  and  another.^  But  between  man 
and  man  the  goddess  of  law  and  order  has  prevailed,  and,  at 
any  rate  in  principle,  the  "right  of  the  stronger  has  ceased 
to  exist." 

To  this  we  must  hold  fast,  for  any  one  considering  the  his- 
tory of  nations  really  might  think  that  to  look  for  justice 
upon  earth  is  looking  for  Utopia.  Everj^where  it  is  "Fa 
victis" — "Woe  to  the  vanquished";  again  has  Brennus  -  cast 
his  sword  into  the  scales  of  Justice,  and  the  Old  Testament 
words,  "the  law  is  slacked,"  still  hold  good.^ 

How  comes  it,  then,  that  man  has  nevertheless  persisted  in 
believing  in  eternal  rights,  in  love  of  his  neighbor,  in  altru- 
ism, human  dignity,  and  whatever  all  the  other  ways  may  be  of 
stating  the  fact  that  man  respects  every  other  man  as  being 
one  of  his  own  kind  ?  From  time  immemorial  it  has  been  a 
disputed  question  whether  this  principle  of  right  is  naturally 
existent  in  us  as  an  element  in  our  souls,  as  it  were,  or  has 
arisen  in  us,  so  to  speak,  artificially,  having  been  agreed  upon, 
owing  to  reflection  and  the  dictates  of  reason. 

For  thousands  of  years  this  question  has  been  discussed 
without  any  one  ever  having  asked  whether  this  "communion 
of  men"  may  not  perhaps  be  a  function  of  their  physical 
constitution,  and  therefore  an  actual  demonstrable  fact. 
Were  this  so,  it  would  of  course  be  absurd  to  describe  right  as 
man-made.  On  the  other  hand,  to  say  that  it  is  implanted  by 
nature  or  God  in  men's  souls  is  the  same  thing  as  instinctively 
recognizing  that  it  is  subject  to  laws  which  are,   after  all, 

I'-Uie  Elemenle  der  Metaphysik"  ("The  Elements  of  Metaphysics") 
by  Paul  l)eus«feL'n,  2nd  ed.,  p.  2.53  f.  by  Paul  Deussen.  The  writer  adds, 
"Prom  this  may  be  inferred  how  immature  our  race  still  is,  for  it  may 
he  probably  certainly  foretold  that  the  time  will  come  when  we  shall 
look  back  on  war  as  a  horrible  piece  of  barbarism  belonging  to  long-past 
dark  ages." 

•^  The  leader  of  the  Gauls  must  he  meant  here,  who  invaded  Greece 
in  279  B.C.  He  and  liis  men  were  checked  at  Themiopyhe,  then  devas- 
tated .^tolia,  and  advanced  on  Deli>hi,  but  were  completely  defeated 
when   Brennus  killed   liimself. — Translator. 

3  Habakkuk  I,  4. 


386  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

independent  of  our  personal  desires  and  superior  to  all  human 
wisdom. 

Here  again  it  can  be  seen  how  wisely  and  unconsciously 
justly  mankind  in  general  feels;  for  except  for  a  short  pe- 
riod when  the  Sophists  taught  that  right  is  not  anything 
natural,  but  only  something  agreed  upon, — that  is,  established 
by  man, — every  one  has  believed  in  a  divine  or  innate  right, 
— that  is,  a  right  independent  of  any  human  will,  something, 
as  it  were,  impersonal  and  yet  a  fact.  Socrates  in  particular 
insisted  that  if  there  were  no  absolute  right,  then  there  never 
could  be  any  right  at  all ;  and  if  we  reflect  upon  this,  it  seems 
and  is  so  self-evident  that  since  Socrates 's  time  no  one  has 
questioned  this  principle.  Only  in  one  respect  do  the  post- 
Socratic  philosophers  differ  from  their  master,  very  unfortu- 
nately for  them.  They  forgot  that  in  the  meantime  the 
</)v'o-ts  had  been  replaced  by  the  jwerct  <f>v(nv,  that  which  lies  be- 
hind nature.  Men  ceased  to  perceive  the  primeval  cause  of 
everything  absolute  in  Socrates 's  simple  natural  facts,  and 
thought  it  needful  to  take  refuge  in  the  metaphysics  of  Aris- 
totle or  even  of  the  latter 's  inferior  successors.  Thus  what 
was  subsequently  proclaimed  as  "natural  right''  had  nothing 
to  do  with  nature,  but  was,  on  the  contrary,  metaphysical 
right,  which  had  come  about  by  human  ordinance. 

Once  we  have  recognized  this  misconception,  the.  question 
inevitably  arises  whether  the  time-honored  difference  between 
Socrates  and  his  opponents  does  not  vanish  if  we  simply  trace 
back  absolute  right  to  absolute  natural  laws.  I  believe  that  this 
is  so.  There  is  an  absolute  right,  based  upon  the  conception 
which  natural  science  proves  true,  that  mankind  is  an  organ- 
ism; and  hence  this  right  is  no  less  absolute  than  mankind 
itself.  (Cf.  Chap.  XII.)  This  must  suffice  for  us,  for  none 
can  penetrate  beyond  his  own  race  and  the  natural  conditions 
to  which  it  is  subject.  But  if  mankind  once  realizes  the  neces- 
sity of  this  absolute  right  for  the  human  race,  then  will  it  have 
understood  the  secret  of  Prometheus.  Then  will  pessimism 
be  overcome,  and  the  vision  of  Christ  be  a  reality. 


ALTRUISM  387 

§  140. — Right  and  Cosmopolitanism 

But  even  if  we  reject  all  metaphysical  basis  for  right,  we  are 
nowise  entitled  to  consider  the  efforts  of  two  thousand  years  as 
having  been  of  no  avail.  Natural  science  did  not  then  exist, 
and  to  develop  the  idea  of  right,  it  was  unquestionably  of  most 
importance  to  prove  that  a  right  was  unconditionally  a  right. 
Without  metaphysics  this  would  hardly  have  been  possible. 

Now,  we  must  note  the  fact  that  all  these  great  moral  philos- 
ophers of  olden  times  were  already  thorough  cosmopolitans. 
This,  though  much  too  often  forgotten,  after  all  could  not  have 
been  otherwise,  for  absolute  right  cannot  but  apply  to  all  hu- 
man beings.  Christ  was  by  no  means  the  first  citizen  of  the 
world.  Socrates  before  him  taught  that  all  men  were  broth- 
ers, and  in  return  for  this  the  people  of  Athens  handed  him  a 
draft  of  hemlock,  even  as  the  people  of  Jerusalem  at  a  later 
date  nailed  Jesus  to  the  cross,  and  as  even  now  any  one  who 
does  not  see  eye  to  eye  with  the  mass  of  his  fellow-citizens  is 
outlawed  by  them.  But  the  death  of  Socrates  served  as  an 
example  and  a  warning,  and  his  disciples,  to  whom  alone  we 
owe  our  knowledge  of  him,  consequently  kept  very  quiet  about 
his  dangeiious  new  philosophy.  Nevertheless,  the  great  Athe- 
nian's cosmopolitan  ideas  must  have  been  very  popular  even 
live  hundred  years  after  his  death,  for  the  comparatively 
ignorant  Epictetus,^  when  expressing  his  belief  in  all  men 
having  one  and  the  same  country,  quotes  Socrates.  If,  he  says, 
what  philosophers  say  about  the  relationship  between  God  and 
man  be  true,  what  is  man  to  do,  when  asked  to  what  country 
he  belongs,  but  answer  as  Socrates  did,  not,  "  I  am  an  Athenian 
or  a  Corinthian,"  but  "I  am  a  citizen  of  the  world." 

This  idea,  however,  prevailed  not  in  Greece  only,  where  it 
was  principally  advocated  by  the  schools  of  the  Cynics  and 
Stoics,  but  among  enlightened  men  throughout  the  world.  An- 
cient Indian  and  Chinese  literature  affords  numerous  proofs 
of  this.     Now,  about  the  time  of  Christ  this  conception  of 

1  Conversations.  Book  I,  9. 


388  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

world-citizenship,  which  hitherto  had  only  flashed  like  light- 
ning across  the  minds  of  a  few  geniuses,  seems  suddenly  to  have 
come  to  life  in  the  form  of  a  "  variation  on  the  conception  of 
humanity."  The  time  was  fulfilled,  as  the  Bible  says.  While 
Seneca  in  Rome  was  preaching  the  doctrine  of  world-wide  love, 
the  Jewish  scholar  Hillel  was  committing  it  to  writing,  and 
Confucius  proclaiming  brotherly  love  in  the  far  East,  while 
at  the  same  time  Christendom  was  coming  into  being.  It 
may  seem  immaterial  which  of  these  teachers  we  follow  pro- 
vided we  do  follow  one. 

Even  St.  Paul  makes  clear  references  to  such  ideas,  and  so 
do  the  patriarchs  and  all  the  later  Scholastics.  The  "king- 
dom of  God,"  however,  was  more  and  more  interpreted  as 
meaning  life  in  the  world  to  come,  a  fact  which  in  time  cer- 
tainly prevented  this  conception  from  having  the  revolution- 
ary effects  which  at  first  it  undoubtedly  produced.  But  even 
the  worldly  philosophers  of  every  school  were  all  at  bottom 
cosmopolitans,  and  hoped  in  one  way  or  another  to  break  down 
the  barriers  separating  man  from  his  fellow-man.  In  the  fol- 
lowing table  the  only  moderns  I  have  quoted  are,  intentionally, 
Germans,  because  it  seems,  or  at  any  rate  did  seem,  the  spe- 
cial vocation  of  the  German  nation  to  rescue  these  eternal  con- 
ceptions of  Christianity  from  the  scholastic  chaos  of  the 
church. 

In  the  Christian  era  all  serious  thinkers  were  also  agreed 
that  a  perpetual  peace  must  of  course  be  the  object  of  all 
this  chaos  and  confusion.  To  discuss  this  in  detail  would  lead 
me  too  far  away  from  my  point,  and  therefore  I  give  the  fol- 
lowing table.  I  would  merely  add  that,  with  the  possible  ex- 
ception of  St.  Augustine,  those  mentioned  in  it  all  believed 
in  peace  on  earth  and  in  the  community  of  all  living  heings. 

Then  came  the  period  when  misinterpreted  Darwinism  al- 
tered awakening  national  sentiment  and  men's  ideas  gener- 
ally. First  in  England  and  France,  afterward  in  Germany, 
and  now  in  the  smallest  aggregates  of  people  speaking  the  same 
or  allied  languages,  for  instance,  the  Czechs  and  Ukrainians, 


ALTRUISM 


389 


Author 


Object  to  be  attained.    Method  of  attaining  it 


St.  Paul. 


St.   Aupustine    (De   Civi- 
tate  Dei  XIV,  28). 


St.  Thomas. 
princ. ) 


{De  rcgim. 


Leasing.    ( ''Erziehung  des 
Menschengeschechts." )  i 

Herder.  ("Ideen  zu  einer 
Phileophie  der  Ge- 
schichte  der  Men- 
schheit.")  - 

Kant.  ("Ideen  zu  einer 
allgemeinen  Geschich- 
te,"  1784.)  3 

Fichte.  ("Grundziige  des 
gegenvviirtigen  Zeitalt- 
ers,"  1806,  VII,  18ff.)  4 

Schelling.  ("Vorlesungen 
iiber  die  Methode  der 
akademischen  studien,', 
p.  153,  and  "System 
des  transcendentalen 
Ideals,"  p.  417.)  s 

Hegel.  ("Philosopliie  der 
Geschichte,"  gesam- 
melteWerke,IX,  11.)  e 


The  kingdom   of   God   Through  Christ, 
on  earth. 


"Everlasting  Rest  in 
God." 

"A  Universal  Chris- 
tian Monarchy," 
with  the  Pope  at  its 
head.  (Like  Dante.) 

The  Eternal  New  Gos- 
pel. 


Humanity. 


Perpetual  Peace. 


Perfected  Society. 


Universal  legal  consti- 
tution. 


Absolute  Right. 


Through  Christ. 


Through  Christ. 


Through  the  religion 
of  the  spirit  and  of 
love. 

Through  the  rule  of 
love  and  reason. 


Througii  a  league  of 
nations  united  to- 
gether by  moral  ties. 

By  mutual  improve- 
ment. 


By   the   union   of    lib- 
erty and  necessity. 


By  progress  in  the 
realization  of  lib- 
erty. 


1  "The  Education  of  the  Human  Race,"  published  in  1780. — Translator. 

2  "Thoughts  on  the  Philosophy  of  the  History  of  Mankind,"  English 
translation  1800,  originally  published  1784-01. — Translator. 

3  "Outlines  of  Universal  History." 

*  "Characteristics  of  the  Present  Epoch,"  published  ISOfi 
s  "Lectures  on  the  Method  of  Academic  Study,"  published  in  1803,  and 
"System  of  Transcendental  Idealism,"  published  in  1800. — Translator. 
•"The  Philosophy  of  History,"  Collected  Works. 


390  THE  BIOLOGY  OV  WAR 

the  masses  began  to  believe  that  a  nation's  rights  depend  upon 
its  might  alone.  No  jurist,  it  is  true,  ventured  actually  to 
admit  this  in  so  many  words,  though  Felix  Dahn/  who,  after 
all,  is  mainly  a  novelist,  did  once  make  certain  concessions  to 
nationalism ;  but  even  he  does  not  dare  to  go  to  too  great 
lengths. 

True,  in  quite  recent  times,  especial!}'  after  1870,  there 
was  a  change  even  in  this  respect,  and  now  almost  every  one 
denounces  his  former  ideals.  No  one,  for  instance,  any  longer 
ventures  to  call  himself  a  citizen  of  the  world ;  at  most  he  says 
he  is  international. 

2. — RIGHT    AND   WAR 

§  141. — The  Law  of  Nations 

Thus  if  the  mere  possibility  of  there  being  a  right  necessar- 
ily implies  world  citizenship,  it  follows  of  necessity  that  right 
and  war  cannot  exist  side  by  side. 

But  it  is  in  human  nature  for  every  one  to  be  convinced  of 
the  justice  of  his  cause.  The  Castilian  or  Sicilian  robber 
who  plunders  the  rich  considers  himself  only  an  essential 
element  of  impartial  justice ;  and  the  savor  of  the  truth  con- 
tained in  Gerhard  Hauptmann's  "  Biberpelz "  -  consists  sim- 
ply in  showing  that  there  is  honor  even  among  the  lowest 
thieves.  There  is  probably  hardly  a  single  genuine  passion- 
ate criminal  who  could  not  produce,  from  the  depths  of  his 
subconsciousness,  some  moral  justification  for  his  actions ;  and 
even  the  cool,  collected  criminal,  who,  narrowly  escaping 
prison,  becomes  a  wealthy,  respected  citizen,  can  excuse  him- 
self by  urging  that  he  "keeps  within  the  law." 

And  if  this  is  true  of  the  individual  man,  how  much  more  is 
it  true  of  the  masses.     Whenever  a  hundred  persons  do  the 

1  Julius  Sophus  Felix  Dahn,  poet,  novelist,  and  historical  writer. 
One  of  his  chief  novels,  "A  Fight  for  Rome,"  published  in  1876,  was 
translated  into  English  two  years  later. — Translator. 

^Gerhard  Hauptmann's  "Biberpelz"  ("The  Beaver")  is  a  comedy  pub- 
lished in  1893. — Translator. 


ALTRUISM  391 

same  thing,  the  person  instinctively  feels  as  if  what  so  many 
are  doing  could  not  but  be  right.  But  nowhere  do  greater 
numbers  of  persons  act  in  concert  than  in  war,  and  never  does 
this  feeling  of  being  one  of  a  number  come  out  more  strongly 
than  in  war-time.  We  must  therefore  never  expect  any  na- 
tion to  doubt  the  justice  of  "its"  war  even  for  a  moment. 
Now.  is  there  any  criterion  by  which  the  justice  of  a  war 
might  be  impartially  tested?  "Inter  arma  silent  leges"; 
when  war  breaks  out,  laws  keep  silence,  as  the  unsentimental, 
but  logical,  Romans  put  it.  And  they  were  perfectly  con- 
sistent, for  war  as  war  means  that  the  notion  of  right  is  sus- 
pended ;  and  an  appeal  to  arms  proves  the  refusal  to  recognize 
that  right  is  any  longer  the  supreme  court  of  appeal,  and  the 
determination  to  place  might  before  right. 

It  is  clearly  important  to  realize  this.  "We  may  urge  any 
and  every  reason  for  war.  We  may  say  it  is  a  natural  neces- 
sity, a  disease  which  there  is  no  warding  off,  a  salutary  medi- 
cine, a  means  of  race  expansion,  or  anj^thing  else  we  please; 
but  let  no  one  call  it  just.  To  do  so  would  be  to  destroy  the 
conception  of  right,  for  there  is  no  worse  injustice  than  one 
which  assumes  the  aspect  of  right.^ 

Ihering-  says  that  resistance  to  wrong  is  a  duty.  Does  it 
really  need  any  further  proof  that  war  against  war  is  resist- 
ance to  wrong?  That  is,  that  resistance  to  war  is  a  duty? 
Is  it  not  a  commonplace  for  Weber's  laughing  piiilosopher  to 
say  that  the  conception  of  right  already  includes  that  of 
peace  ?  ^     A  cause  may  be  as  just  as  possible,  but  as  soon  as  the 

1  Plato's  Hepuhlio,  II,  4,  361.  Dr.  Nicolai  also  quotes  Livy  XXXIX, 
16,  an  indittineiit  against  hypoeritioal  religion  and  using  it  as  a  cloak 
for  crime.s. 

^  liicriiig  or  .liicring,  Rudolf  von  German  jurist,  wlio  was  a  professor 
at  various  plates,  including  Basel  and  Vienna.  Tlie  work  here  quoted. 
"Der  Kitmpf  ums  Reclit,"  pub  1872.  lias  been  translated  into  English  as 
"The  T'.iittle  for  Right."  He  was  celeljrated  as  an  independent  and  olear 
thinker,  and  propoiinded  a  fresh  view  of  Roman  law  as  furnishing  the 
basis  of  a  new  and  adapted  system  of   jurisprudence. — Translator. 

a"Demokrit,"  by  Karl  Jul.  Weber,  Vol.  X,  "Uer  Krieg"   ("War"'). 


392  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

sword  is  drawn  for  it,  it  ceases  to  be  so,  for  then  it  is  no  longer 
right  which  is  championing  it,  but  might. 

In  order  that  right  may  prevail  between  two  persons,  they 
must  conclude  an  agreement.  This,  however,  they  can  do 
only  because,  as  the  jurists  say,  they  are  already  legally  quali- 
fied to  do  so;  or,  as  the  natural  scientist  would  phrase  it,  be- 
cause they  already  instinctively  feel  that  they  are  members  of 
a  community.  But  now  states  come  on  the  scene  as  repre- 
senting the  collective  determination  of  a  whole  community. 
Like  individual  human  beings,  they  are  living  legal  entities, 
endowed  with  a  will  of  their  own.  The  individual  man,  how- 
ever, is  not  merely  an  individual  man,  but  also  a  citizen ;  and 
similarly  every  state  is  a  member  of  the  human  race.  Hence 
it  is  juridically  possible  for  individual  nations  to  unite  to- 
gether to  form  a  universal  human  association  for  right. 

These  premises  are  obvious.  But  it  necessarily  follows  from 
them  that  right  between  human  beings  is  impossible  without 
the  recognition  in  some  form  or  other  that  they  belong  to  the 
same  state ;  and  right  between  states  is  no  less  impossible  with- 
out the  recognition  of  some  form  of  association  which  is  above 
states.  Thus  every  dispute  about  "mine"  and  "thine,"  and, 
for  that  matter,  every  criminal  lawsuit,  proves  that  both  par- 
ties, even  if  unwillingly  and  perhaps  only  under  compulsion, 
submit  to  the  state,  and  consequently  admit  that  they  are 
brothers  in  a  sense.  All  self-help,  however,  is  a  negation  of 
the  state. 

Similarly  with  regard  to  inter-state  matters.  All  self-help 
on  the  part  of  a  state — every  war,  that  is — means  that  the 
particular  state  ceases  to  recognize  any  superordinate  organi- 
zation, thereby  destroying  the  only  possible  means  of  insuring 
right.  In  the  juridical  sense,  a  "just  war,"  therefore,  is  a 
contradiction  in  terms. 

From  a  higher  point  of  view,  however,  war  is  justified  under 
the  same  conditions  as  justify  self-help  in  general.  When- 
ever an  attempt  is  made  to  incroach  upon  the  innate  and  in- 
alienable rights  of  an  individual  man  or  a  nation,  then  both 


ALTRUISM  393 

resort  to  self-help  against  whomsoever  it  may  be.  This  is  revo- 
lution, and  is  permissible  even  in  the  case  of  a  minority 
against  a  majority.  War  will  die  out  so  soon  as  the  organiza- 
tion of  the  world  is  strengthened.  Revolutions  there  will  al- 
ways be. 

Now,  after  all  and  despite  all,  a  law  of  nations  does  exist, 
the  enactments  of  which  remain  in  force  even  during  war. 
True,  as  yet  it  has  always  been  violated  in  every  war;  but 
even  were  breaches  of  this  law  of  nations  the  rule  and  not  tlie 
exception,  this  would  no  more  overthrow  the  conception  of  it 
than  the  conception  of  civil  law  would  be  overthrown  in  a  state 
if  the  majority  of  its  citizens  happened  to  be  criminals. 

The  mere  fact  of  a  law  of  nations  existing,  at  least  in  theory, 
is  cause  for  satisfaction,  since  it  proves  that  a  supra-state  com- 
munity already  exists,  and  that  certain  component  parts  of  the 
different  states  have  already  ceased  to  cooperate  in  making 
war.  After  all,  what  else  does  a  rule  or  enactment  of  inter- 
national law  mean  but  that  certain  things  are  outside  war, 
**extrabellical"  even  during  war,  just  as  a  legation  in  a  for- 
eign couutrj'  is  extraterritorial?  Where  international  law 
is  in  force,  there  is  no  war. 

International  law  may  continue  in  force  during  war  and 
side  by  side  with  it,  but  wherever  it  does  exist  it  restricts  war, 
and  the  time  may  one  day  come  when  it  will  have  restricted 
it  to  the  vanishing-point.  But  where  war  is,  international 
law  is  not.  Whether  the  cannons  of  one  belligerent  aim  better 
than  those  of  another  depends  upon  a  thousand  things,  but 
not  in  the  least  upon  right. 

§  142. — The  Right  of  Reprisals 

That  no  man  really  takes  international  law  seriously  is 
obvious  for  many  reasons.  Nothing  shows  this  so  plainly,  how- 
ever, as  the  constantly  repeated  announcement  that  reprisals 
have  been  or  else  are  to  be  exercised.  The  bread  rations 
of  French  prisoners  of  war  in  Germany,  for  instance,  are  cur- 
tailed, which  may  seem  only  natural,  since,  owing  to  the  action 


394  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

of  German}' 's  enemies,  there  is  beginning  to  be  a  shortage  of 
bread.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  it  is  not  natural  at  all, 
for  if  an}'  country  undertakes  the  obligation  to  treat  prisoners 
of  war  in  a  particular  way,  it  is  bound  to  do  this,  even  should 
it  be  sulfering  from  scarcity  itself,  just  as  an  ordinary  citizen 
must  pay  his  debts,  even  if  this  entails  his  going  hungry  to  bed. 
A  French  officer  complained  of  there  being  no  light  of  an  eve- 
ning, and  when  told  that  there  were  neither  gas-works  nor  elee- 
trioity-works  in  the  place  and  that  there  was  a  great  scarcity 
of  petroleum  throughout  Germany,  he  remarked  that  that  had 
nothing  to  do  with  him,  and  that  if  Germany  could  not  give 
her  prisoners  any  light,  then  she  ought  not  to  take  any  one 
prisoner.  This  was  meant  merely  as  a  joke,  but  it  is  a  strik- 
ing instance  of  how  little  we  in  Germany  are  entitled  to  talk 
about  right. 

But  to  refer  to  the  reduction  of  bread  rations.  As  matters 
are  now,  no  one  can  seriously  reproach  Germany  for  having 
taken  such  a  step.  The  French,  however,  consider  it  a  piece 
of  barbarism,  and  would  be  quite  within  their  rights  in  so 
doing ;  but  at  the  same  time,  according  to  the  newspapers,  they 
are  resolving  to  put  their  German  prisoners  of  war  on  a  diet 
which,  in  their  opinion,  is  insufficient,  despite  there  being  not 
the  slightest  pretext  for  so  doing,  for  France  is  said  not  to  be  in 
the  least  short  of  food,  indeed  she  cannot  be  so. 

Again,  owing  to  the  crews  of  our  German  submarines  hav- 
ing attacked  trading-vessels,  the  British  have  not  treated  them 
as  prisoners  of  war,  but  have  imprisoned  them.  The  Germans 
consider  this  unjust,  "because  our  sailors  were  captured  by 
the  British  while  faithfully  doing  their  duty,"  which  is  un- 
doubtedly true  as  far  as  the  individual  sailor  is  concerned, 
whatever  may  be  our  opinion  as  to  the  sinking  of  trading- 
vessels.  Germany,  however,  not  content  with  protesting,  puts 
thirty-nine  British  officers  under  military  arrest,  knowing  full 
well  all  the  while  that,  even  in  the  opinion  of  the  Germans, 
they  have  done  nothing  dishonorable.     Were  the  infringement 


ALTRUISM  395 

of  the  Geneva  Convention  really  considered  as  a  breach  of  law, 
and  therefore  as  wrong,  it  would  be  impossible  to  act  thus,  for 
no  one  steals  because  some  one  else  has  done  so,  and  no  one 
treats  a  criminal  except  in  accordance  with  right  and  law. 

Reprisals,  however,  are  never  "right."  Yet  the  only  peo- 
ple to  adopt  this  point  of  view,  which  it  might  be  thought  was 
absolutely  obvious,  were  the  Russian  intellectuals,  who,  in 
their  appeal,  stated  that  although  the  war  was  certainly  accom- 
panied by  a  great  deal  of  barbarity,  yet  it  was  for  the  Russians 
to  protest  only  against  such  barbarities  as  were  committed  by 
the  Russian  Army;  anything  else  was  the  concern  of  other 
nations.^  All  other  nations,  on  the  contrary,  have  protested 
only  against  "atrocities"  committed  by  their  enemies,  and 
endeavored  to  put  the  doings  of  their  own  armies  in  the  best 
possible  light. 

Furthermore,  no  one  will  deny  that,  for  instance,  the  in- 
vasion of  Belgium,  the  torpedoing  of  trading-vessels,  the  use 
of  poisonous  gases,  and  much  else  besides  are  contrary  to 
international  law ;  but  that,  as  Bethmann-Hollweg  openly  ad- 
mitted in  the  Reichstag  on  August  4,  1914,  supposing  war 
to  be  allowable  at  all,  international  law  is  not  unconditionally 
binding  on  a  nation  fighting  for  its  existence.  However  much 
all  right  tiiinking  men  may  deplore  this,  it  is  impossible  to 
say  straight  away  that  there  is  no  justification  for  such  an 
opinion.  But  it  proves  that  the  law  of  nations  is  simply  not 
law,  as  is  proved  by  these  examples;  but  that  in  the  opinion  of 
every  normal  man  there  are  exceptions  and  special  cases  in  it. 
There  ought  to  be  no  exception  to  right,  however.  In  any  case 
it  is  not  anything  which  can  be  measured  out  or  made  better 
or  worse  by  something  being  added  to  or  taken  from  it. 

1  So  far  as  can  yet  be  told,  it  is  the  Russian  Army,  contrary  to 
the  view  {generally  prevailing,  which  is  making  more  efforts  than  that 
of  any  other  nation  to  act  in  accordance  witli  the  precepts  of  morality, 
and  likewise  to  take  advantage  of  this  war  to  compel  other  nations  to 
recogni/e  Russia  as  a  civilized  power.  'J'his.  of  course,  does  not  do  away 
with  the  fact  that  Cossacks  have  committed  gross  excesses. 


396  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

§  143. — The  Right  of  the  Stronger 

True,  there  is  yet  another  kind  of  right — the  right  of  the 
stronger,  which  certainly  is  a  »ight  only  in  name,  and  has 
nothing  whatever  to  do  with  any  right  for  which  there  is  any 
moral  basis  whatsoever.  But  combating  prejudice  is  only  too 
often  neither  more  nor  less,  than  combating  the  misuse  of 
words;  and  the  fact  of  the  same  word  being  used  for  a  right 
based  on  strength  and  a  right  based  on  a  responsibility  has 
assuredly  done  a  great  deal  of  mischief. 

Now,  the  German  word  Recht  (right)  contains  two  wholly 
diverse  notions:  moral  right,  and  prevailing  right  (law). 
Finally  there  is  the  attempt  made  to  combine  the  two  senses  in 
the  word  justice,  man's  subjective  virtue. 

This  of  course  easily  gives  rise  to  misconceptions,  such  as 
the  right  of  superior  strength,  or  '*la  raison  du  plus  fort," 
as  the  French  say.  Now,  that  in  actual  fact  strength  often 
does  create  right  even  the  ancients  were  well  aware,  and 
Pindar  speaks  of  "the  victorious  hand  of  law  sanctifying  the 
grossest  violence."  ^  Even  in  his  time  attempts  were  made  to 
justify  this  right  by  natural  science,  Darwinistically,  as  it 
were.  Callicles,"  for  instance,  says:  "In  the  state,  as  in  na- 
ture, the  stronger  must  rule  over  the  weaker,  for  natural  se- 
curity consists  therein. ' '  Even  Socrates  ^  and  Plato  *  assure 
us  that  ' '  the  right  at  present  prevailing  is  based  on  the  acci- 
dent of  power,"  but  they  claim,  on  moral  grounds,  that  this 
ought  not  to  be  the  case. 

Since  Socrates 's  time  the  question  whether  man  shall  be  a 
practical  politician  or  an  idealist  has  divided  the  world  into 
two  opposite  camps ;  but  although  every  one  claiming  the  name 
of  human  being  theoretically  strives  for  that  right  which  he 
vaguely  feels  to  be  his  immutable  ideal,  yet  most  men  abide 
by  the  precept  of  the  sober  Aristotle,  who  was  content  to  note 
the  fact  that  right,  properly  so  called,  did  not  exist  on  earth. 

1  Pindar  in  the  laws  of  Plato.  3  "Memorabilia,"  IV,  4  ff. 

2  Plato's  "Gorgias,"  38.  *  Plato's  "Laws,"  IV,  4. 


ALTRUISM  397 

Only  in  the  brief  period  when  primitive  Christianity  pre- 
vailed did  large  numbers  of  human  beings  venture  to  dream 
dreams  of  justice,  but  the  brutal  facts  of  this  rough  world 
soon  put  an  end  to  any  such  extravagances.  Even  Spinoza  ^ 
finally  admitted  that  the  right  of  each  individual  man  ex- 
tended as  far  as  his  might,  adding,  in  order  to  make  this  seem 
less  brutal,  that  the  divine  spark  lurking  in  every  person 
might  be  tnisted  to  prevent  too  great  encroachments  on  the 
part  of  might. 

This  state  of  pessimistic  irresolution  continued  a  long  while, 
as  the  writings  of  Hobbes,  Male,branche,-  and  others  testify ; 
while  the  sharp  distinction  between  this  "vale  of  tears"  and 
"celestial  bliss"  made  the  mass  of  the  people  consider  any 
discussion  of  the  question  in  principle  impossible.  Not  till 
recent  times  did  the  masses  evince  a  desire  for  "enjoying 
celestial  bliss  while  still  on  earth,"  and  again  they  began  to 
wonder  what,  after  all,  their  rights  really  were.  But  the  revo- 
lutionaries of  to-day  fell  into  the  mistake  of  the  feudal  oppres- 
sors of  yesterday,  and  built  up  right  upon  might.^ 

That  there  should  be  a  transition  period  is  understandable, 
but  unfortunate,  not  merely  because  the  bloodshed,  for  in- 
stance, during  the  French  Revolution  must  be  ascribed  to  this 
theory,  but  also  because  it  prevented  the  innovators  from 
really  going  to  the  root  of  matters,  that  is,  from  being  con- 
sistent.    We  shall  see  the  reason  for  that  inconsistency  which 

1  "Quia  unus  quisque  tantum  juris  habet,  quantum  potentia  valet." 
Spinoza's  "Tractate,"  1670,  Caput  11,  §  8,  "Tractatus  theologico  poli- 
ticus." 

2  Nicole  Malebranche.  French,  philosopher,  who  became  a  Roman 
Catholic  priest.  His  pliilosoplier  has  a  certain  resemblance  to  that  of 
Berkeley,  but  his  chief  connection  with  English  philosophy  is  through 
his  pupil  John  Norris,  an  acute  critic  of  John  Locke.  Malehranche's 
"Recherche  de  lat  Verite"  appeared  in  1674,  and  his  "P^ntretiens  sur  la 
M<'-taphysique"  in  1688.  The  former  was  translated  into  English  in 
16'.)4. — Translator. 

3  Augiisto  Comto  has  some  very  wise  words  about  this,  the  funda- 
mental mistake  of  all  modern  revolutions.  In  "Lecon  46,"  Vol.  IV,  p. 
27  et  aeq.  he  shows  the  foimders  of  a  new  era  always  set  to  work  with 
the  methods  of  the  old  era. 


398  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

has  istruek  every  one  in  sue-h  men  as  Robespierre  and  Saint 
Just,  if  we  reflect  that  they,  too,  wanted  to  base  right  on 
might. 

Again,  Ferdinand  Lassalle  is  to-day  popularly  considered 
the  first  man  to  have  advocated  a  future  state  based  on  justice. 
Yet  it  is  singular  that  he  should  at  the  same  time  have  once 
more  proclaimed  the  ancient  doctrine  of  the  right  of  superior 
strength;  and  also  that,  despite  his  having  strongly  opposed 
the  notion  of  acquired  or  inherited  rights,  he  should  once 
more  have  raised  the  question  whether  might  or  right  comes 
first.  In  his  speeches  and  writings  on  constitutionalism,  he 
adopted  the  attitude  that  constitutional  questions,  or,  to  use 
a  more  comprehensive  word,  questions  of  right,  are  questions 
of  might,  arguing  that  right,  in  so  far  as  it  exists,  always 
depends  on  actually  existing  conditions  of  power,  and  that 
therefore  written  law  cannot  be  lasting  or  of  value  except  it 
exactly  expresses  these  actually  existing  conditions  of  power. 

Now,  this  would  seem  to  justify  all  violence,  war,  plunder, 
and  what  not  besides,  as  the  reactionaries  of  that  day  were 
astute  enough  to  observe.  Thus  the  "Kreuzzeitung"  ^  wrote 
that  the  revolutionary  Jew's  instinct  had  led  him  to  hit  the 
right  nail  on  the  head.  Roon,"  then  Prussian  Minister  of 
War,  stated  that  "what  history  is  mainly  concerned  about — 
the  history  not  only  of  individual  countries,  but  also,  the  in- 
ternal history  of  each  country— was  neither  more  nor  less  than 
the  struggle  for  and  increase  of  power."  Finally  Bismarck, 
then  prime  minister,^  to  a  certain  extent  admitted  that  his 
socialist  opponent  was  right,  opining  that  "such  questions  of 
right  are  usually  settled  not  by  confronting  one  contradictory 
theory  with  another,  but  only  gradually,  by  the  practice  pre- 
vailing in  constitutional  law."  That  is,  considering  who  it 
was  who  used  these  words,  it  all  depends  on  how  powerful  the 
country^  or  countries  concerued  may  be  at  the  time.     Whether 

iThe  "Kreuzzeitung"  for  .Tune  8,   1862,     No.    1862. 

2  Roon's  speech  in  the  Prussian  Ciiainher  of  Doputits,  Sept    12,  1862. 

3  Bismarck's  speech  at  the  meeting  of  the  Chamber  on  Oct.  7,  1862. 


ALTRUISM  399 

Bismarck  actually  used  the  words  "Might  comes  before  right" 
was  long  disputed.^ 

§  144. — Evolution  and  Revolution 

Whether  these  words  were  actually  uttered  or  not,  the  phrase 
"Might  comes  before  right"  has  long  become  a  fact,  and  the 
only  question  is  whether  it  is  to  be  a  guiding  principle. 

If  a  man  have  been  killed,  however  unjustly,  no  right  can  call 
him  back  to  life ;  but  this  recognition  of  a  fact  does  not  mean 
that  we  think  it  justified,  and  even  if  what  is  done  cannot  be 
undone,  we  may  still  insist  on  its  not  happening  again. 
Unless  th«  killing  of  a  human  being  does  not  offend  any  one's 
sense  of  right,  as  is  tlie  case  with  the  execution  of  a  murderer 
the  matter  does  not  end  there.  Society  tries  as  far  as  it  can 
to  protest  against  the  fact  of  the  murder  by  punishing  the 
nuirderer. 

Hence  the  words  ".Might  comes  before  right"  merely  mean 
that  it  may  happen  that  the  conceptions  of  right  alter  so 
radically  that  another  right  has  now  generally  succeeded  in 
prevailing,  although  of  course  only  with  the  help  of  might. 
Of  course  it  may  be  said  that  in  the  French  Revolution  might 
prevailed.  Bu^  the  only  reason  why  might  was  able  to  pre- 
vail, and  why  the  whole  Revolution  did  not  soon  fizzle  out, 
but  revolutionized  all  conceptions  of  right,  was  because  men 
were  already  thinking  of  some  such  radical  upheaval.  It 
was  generally  felt  that  conditions  before  the  Revolution  were 
wrong.  A  small  minority  were  endeavoring  to  enforce  alleged 
rights  that  really  no  longer  existed.  Hence  the  victory  won 
by  the  might  of  revolutionary  ideas  was  in  reality  a  victory 
of  the  new  conceptions  of  right.  In  a  certain  sense  right  and 
might  are  identical  ideas,  although  only  if  it  be  realized  that 
true  right  alone  has  the  might  permanently  to  prevail.     In 

1  In  186.3  they  were  attributed  to  him  by  Graf  Schwerin.  and  the  re- 
port spread  everywhere.  Bismarck  protested,  but  it  must  be  admitted 
that  this  was  undoubtedly  the  sense  of  his  spett'fi.  even  although  tlie 
words  are  not  actually  in  the  shorthand  report  of  it 


400  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

this  sense  the  saying  "Might  comes  before  right"  is  justified; 
but  it  cau  also  be  reversed  into  "Right  comes  before  might," 
which  would  mean  that  the  new  right  is  actually  more  power- 
ful than  the  old  vested  might,  however  powerful  the  outward 
means  by  which  it  may  be  supported. 

]\lod^rn  right  will  always  struggle  against  ancient  might, 
and  this  it  is  which  justifies  revolutions.  But  modern  right 
will  never  succeed  in  prevailing  unless  the  people,  the  mass 
of  mankind,  actually  accept  it;  and  before  they  can  do  this 
they  must  greatly  modify  their  conceptions  of  right.  In 
other  words,  a  revolution,  which  is  always  the  work  of  some 
far-seeing  genius,  cannot  come  about  unless  evolution  has 
already  educated  the  world  to  be  prepared  for  it. 

All  revolutions,  whether  fought  out  with  spiritual  weapons 
or  with  weapons  of  iron  and  steel,  have  had  forerunners. 
These  forerunners  failed  simply  because  the  new  right  had 
not  yet  become  might.  Socrates  died  without  having  had  any 
influence  worth  mentioning  on  the  world  in  general;  and 
henceforth  the  great  revolution  of  mankind  is  inseparably 
bound  up  with  the  name  of  Christ.  Huss  perished,  but  Luther 
prevailed,  Galilei  had  publicly  to  abjure  his  own  philosophy; 
but  Newton  followed,  and  with  him  modern  science  begins. 
Even  the  French  Revolution  could  never  have  taken  place 
unless  Voltaire,  Rousseau,  and  many  others  had  prepared  the 
way  for  it. 

Thus  these  forerunners  personified  the  right  to  a  new  order 
of  things ;  the  old  order  was  corrupt  even  in  their  day :  but 
the  time  had  not  yet  come,  mankind  was  not  yet  ripe,  and 
there  had  not  been  a  sufficient  change  in  the  conception  of 
right  either  from  the  political,  scientific,  or  ethical  point  of 
view. 

That  outward  development  of  power  which  causes  the  final 
collapse  of  an  already  decayed  structure  is  usually  of  merely 
secondary  importance.  It  is  not  a  cause,  but  a  symptom ;  but 
because  many  people  do  not  look  below  the  surface  and 
see  only  outward  causes  and  effects,  they  imagine  that  it  is  this 


ALTRUISM  401 

new  development  of  power  which  has  really  caused  a  new 
conception  of  right  to  prevail.  Thus  and  in  no  other  way 
could  the  saying  "Might  comes  before  right"  have  arisen. 
The  decisive  factor,  however,  is  always  evolution,  not  revolu- 
tion ;  the  new  conception  of  right  will  and  must  prevail  with  or 
without  revolts.  But  impatient  man  often  wants  to  make 
events  move  faster,  and  though  sometimes  he  may  have  suc- 
ceeded in  so  doing,  he  has  quite  as  often  merely  delayed  mat- 
ters. 

Similarly  with  regard  to  war.  If  the  German  people  pos- 
sesses the  physical  and  psychical  qualifications  for  ruling  the 
world,  it  Will  succeed  in  doing  so  without  any  war;  and  if  it 
does  not  possess  such  qualifications,  the  winning  of  any  num- 
ber of  wars  will  not  alter  this  fact. 

As  far  as  the  settlement  of  actual  questions  of  power  is 
concerned,  the  war  is  merely  an  insigniticant  temporary  dis- 
aster ;  and  in  no  case  is  the  saying  "Might  comes  before  right," 
rightly  interpreted,  calculated  to  justify  a  display  of  force 
on  a  scale,  as  it  seems,  hitherto  unprecedented. 

§  145. —  War  and  the  Judgment  of  God 

Ouly  a  good  Christian  can  be  a  good  soldier.  This  may 
seem  like  coutempt  of  the  Christian  doctrine  of  "love  thy 
neighbor  as  thyself";  yet  these  words  contain  a  truth  which 
explains  much  that  has  happened  and  may  serve  as  an  indica- 
tion of  what  is  to  come.  One  thing,  indeed,  is  certain. 
Among  moral  beings  none  may  draw  the  sword  save  he  who 
believes  in  God.  None  save  he  who  is  firmly  convinced  that 
God  awards  the  victory  to  him  whose  cause  is  just  can  be 
at  once  a  soldier  and  a  moral  person ;  for  if  no  God  directs 
the  shot,  then  it  is  might,  not  right,  which  wins. 

Now,  there  is  really  no  necessity  to  insist  on  moral  consider- 
ations in  war,  which  we  are  not  accustomed  seriously  to  take 
into  account  in  any  other  human  transactions.  We  might 
be  content  with  saying,  like  Voltaire,^  that  a  trifle  more  or 

I  "Candide  ou  rOptijnlsme,"  by  Voltaire.  1759. 


402  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

less  wrong-  in  this  most  glorious  of  all  worlds  matters  devilish 
little;  and  that  when  millions  of  men  are  being  destroyed  in 
the  hideous  struggle  for  supremacy,  we  can  hardly  grudge 
those  who  like  such  emotions  as  the  pleasure  of  killing  a  few 
thousands  in  honest  warfare.  In  any  case,  what  's  in  a  name  ? 
A  man  dies  of  a  cancerous  swelling,  even  if  the  doctor  consoles 
him  by  calling  it  non-malignant ;  and  the  results  of  a  war 
are  equally  inevitable,  whether  we  call  it  just  or  unjust. 
Even  were  it  proved  justifiable,  this  would  not  alter  the  fact 
of  its  being  hideous. 

Yet  for  most  men  there  is  a  great  deal  in  a  name.  Other 
beings  endowed  with  reason  do  not  understand  this.  The 
lunar  Princess  Domiladosol,^  for  instance,  rightly  asks, 
"But  in  war  why  do  not  men  appeal  to  arbitrators,  if  they 
believe  right  is  on  their  side  ? "  But  it  is  just  the  men  of  to- 
day who  seem  not  to  perceive  the  irony  of  such  a  question, 
and  they  lay  more  stress  than  ever  on  a  war  being  "just." 
Frivolous  and  criminal  wars,  they  say,  ought  to  be  prevented, 
and  in  these  they  include  religious  and  dynastic  wars  and 
wars  of  conquest.  Only  a  "fight  for  the  fatherland"  is  just, 
in  which  category  people  in  Germany  specially  include  the 
wars  of  1813,  1870,  and  1914.-  But  if  even  a  professor  of 
law  such  as  Wilhelm  Kahl  passes  over  1864  and  1866  in 
silence,  which  can  hardly  be  wholly  unintentional,  yet  most  of 
his  fellow-countrymen  consider  wars  of  conquest  also  just ; 
and  only  a  handful  of  them  would  allow  the  fact  of  Belgium 's 
being  annexed  or  not  in  any  way  to  affect  their  opinion  of  the 
War  of  1914.  And  though  the  Sultan  of  Turkey  proclaimed 
the  hetwah,  or  holy  war, — that  is  a  religious  war, — this  does 
not  make  him  any  less  valuable  as  an  ally  than  Austria.  Yet 
Austria,  which  is  held  together  only  by  the  Hapsburg  dynasty, 
could  scarcely  wage  any  save  a  dynastic  war.    And  religious 

1  "Histoire  comique,  on  voyage  dana  la  Lune."  Par  Cyrano  de 
Bergerae,    ItJSO      Chap.    III. 

2  "Vom  Recht  zum  Krieg  und  vom  Siegespreis"  ("On  the  Right  to 
Make  War  and  the  Fruits  of  Victory")  by  Professor  Dr.  Kahl,  1914. 


ALTRUISM  403 

and  dynastic  wars  are  supposed  to  be  frivolous  and  criminal. 

No,  it  matters  not  what  epithet  we  apply  to  war,  but  for 
this  very  reason  is  it  worth  while  going  into  "the  justice  of 
war"  in  order  to  prove  that  the  few  who  have  ever  seriously 
and  impartially  called  war  just  have  in  reality-  always  relied 
upon  the  "right  of  the  stronger,"  that  is,  on  a  sort  of  sup- 
posed justice  based  on  natural  science.^  This,  as  I  purpose 
to  show,  has  nothing  whatever  to  do  either  with  right  or  nat- 
ural science,  which  at  once  answers  the  objection  that  war 
and  peace  cannot  be  determined  by  natural  science  alone, 
and  that  there  are  also  profound  ethical  causes  underlying  war. 

Moreover,  it  is  a  fact  that  man  has  considered  war  not  merely 
as  a  test  of  power  or  strength,  but  always  as  a  means  of  ascer- 
taining who  is  in  the  right.  It  was  the  deluded  mystics, 
who  used  to  make  the  judgments  of  God  an  integral  part  of 
the  institution  of  law,  who  have  sanctified  war,  as  it  were. 
It  used  to  be  believed  that  in  a  duel  (Jod  gave  the  victory  to 
the  combatant  with  right  on  his  side,  and  that  an  innocent 
person  did  not  sink  in  water,  and  was  not  scorched  by  red- 
hot  iron  nor  affected  by  poison.  Similarly  it  was  believed 
that  the  heavenly  hosts  placed  their  shield  in  front  of  that 
army  which  was  waging  the  war  desired  by  God. 

The  world  has  long  since  ceased  to  believe  in  God's  personal 
intervention  in  war.  It  is  known  that  "God  is  ever  on  the  side 
of  the  big  battalions."  But  the  notion  that  there  is  still 
some  sort  of  justice  in  war  seems  ineradicable,  despite  the  fact 
that  the  least  reflection  shows  that  any  possibility  of  the  just 
man  winning  must  be  based  on  the  intervention  of  a  higher 
principle  representing  justice.  The  educated  believer  will 
assuredly  hardly  believe  that  this  omnipotent  principle  can  be 
modified  by  force  of  arms;  but  the  uneducated  and  supersti- 
tious, who  imagine  they  can  use  their  God  for  selfish  ends,  will 
invoke  Tlis  name  on  behalf  of  their  real  or  imaginary  right. 

1  Dr  Kahl,  the  authority  on  criminal  law,  for  instance,  expressly 
states  in  one  of  his  addresaes,  "War  is  a  -natural  force  in  the  history 
of  the  whole  world." 


404  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 


3. — SOME  PRELIMINARY  REFLECTIONS  ON   ALTRUISM 

§  146. — Natural  Law  and  Purpose 

It  would  seem  an  impossibility  to  insist  on  natural  duties, 
since  nature  knows  neither  right  nor  wrong.  Even  the  phrase 
"natural  law"  is,  after  all,  misleading.  The  ancient  Greeks 
racked  their  brains  a  long  time  as  to  whether  this,  that,  or 
the  other  was  a  "natural"  or  a  "human"  institution.  Not 
till  a  fairly  recent  period  was  it  thought  possible  to  settle  the 
question  by  deciding  that  it  was  "a  natural"  institution. 

In  modern  science  the  phrase  natural  law  is  now  one  which 
every  one  understands.  Nevertheless,  it  is  still  a  reminder 
that  we  once  believed  in  something  which  laid  down  laws  for 
nature.  According  to  a  man's  point  of  view,  he  considered 
these  laws  just  or  unjust,  and  then  a  belief  in  the  existence 
of  a  natural  law  of  course  necessarily  arose.  In  reality,  how- 
ever, there  is  neither  law  nor  right  in  nature,  but  only  facts 
and  necessities,  or,  to  put  the  matter  in  a  nutshell,  conditions 
under  which  something  happens  or  does  not  happen.  Were 
it  a  law  that  iron  follows  a  magnet,  then  of  course  the  one 
must  always  follow  the  other;  but  in  reality  magnetism  is 
only  one  of  the  conditions  by  which  iron  can  be  moved,  and  if, 
for  example,  in  any  particular  case  gravitation  preponderates 
over  magnetism,  then  iron  does  not  obey  this  so-called  law. 
"  Given  the  right  conditions,  anything  is  possible;  but,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  possibilities  are  mostly  so  much  reduced  by  all 
manner  of  "necessary"  conditions  that  one  particular  pos- 
sibility of  necessity  intervenes.  A  stone  in  any  position  in 
space  can,  so  far  as  itself  is  concerned,  move  in  any  direction 
whatsoever  if  only  it  receives  the  proper  impulse ;  but  as 
gravitation  acts  everywhere  on  earth,  the  stone  will  always 
tend  to  move  toward  the  center  of  the  earth  unless  there  is 
a,  special  cause  why  it  should  not  do  so. 

Similarly  in  the  nature  of  things  every  human  being  has 
the  power  of  doing  everything  within  the  limits  of  his  physical 


ALTEUISM  405 

strength.  He  can,  if  he  pleases,  call  this  power  his  inborn 
right.  Thus,  to  quote  one  instance,  there  is  undoubtedly  no 
natural  law  to  prevent  any  human  being  from  killing  others, 
stealing  their  belongings,  violating  women,  idling,  getting  in- 
fectious diseases,  and  dying.  In  this  sense  also  each  person 
and  each  nation  has  a  "right"  to  wage  war. 

But  to  call  the  possibility  of  doing  all  this  "a  right"  can 
at  best  create  confusion,  for  such  a  possibility  has  nothing  in 
common  with  what  we  call  a  right.  Indeed,  in  the  case  of  war 
it  is  opposed  to  every  conceivable  right.  Broadly  and  gener- 
ally it  may  be  said  that,  in  order  to  choose  the  legitimate  course 
from  the  heterogeneous  collection  of  possible  courses  open  to 
us,  we  must  have  some  object  or  purpose  in  view  to  guide  us. 
But  such  a  purpose  transcends  nature.  It  is  probably  within 
the  province  of  natural  science  to  note  that  some  such  regard 
for  moral  obligations  is  present  in  the  case  of  a  certain  pro- 
portion of  human  beings.  Similarly  it  can  note  the  fact  that 
magnetism  occurs  in  certain  substances.  Natural  science  does 
not  know  what  magnetism  is  or  what  moral  obligations  are, 
but  in  both  cases  it  can  inquire  "under  what  conditions  they 
occur." 

§  147. — Inborn  Hights 

For  instance,  it  is  a  fact  that  most  human  beings  (or,  for 
the  sake  of  pnidenee,  let  us  say,  some  of  them)  shrink  from 
committing  murder.  Whether  the  word  right  or  fact  be 
applied  to  this  shrinking  does  not  matter.  Similarly  it  is  an 
undeniable  fact  that  certain  persons  do  not  feel  any  such 
horror,  and  that  such  persons  are  to  be  found  not  only  among 
primitive  peoples,  but  even  among  modern  Europeans.  Some 
of  them  have  insane  or  crimiiml  tendencies,  but  others  seem 
absolutely  normal.  At  times,  indeed,  it  seems  as  if  almost  the 
entire  poi)ulation  of  a  country  absolutely  cease  to  feel  such 
horror.  All  this  is  a  fact,  and,  if  we  please,  an  inborn  right. 
In  any  ease  no  one  is  in  a  positiou  to  restrict  this  right,  and 
to  this  extent  it  is  really  inalienable.     If  a  man  s  brain  is  so 


406  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

constructed  that  every  murder  seems  to  him  necessarily  sinful, 
then  no  written  law  in  the  world,  no  persuasion,  and  no  pun- 
ishment would  enable  me  to  deprive  him  of  his  conviction. 
But  probably  the  exercise  of  such  a  right  can  be  prevented; 
and  in  fact  the  state  generally  does  prevent  its  citizens  from 
giving  way  to  any  inclination  to  enrich  themselves  by  murder- 
ing another;  but  on  the  contrary,  for  a  short  period  it  com- 
pels men,  even  men  who  have  a  horror  of  blood,  to  kill  others. 
In  the  first  case  the  result  is  that  in  German}^  scarcely  400 
eases  of  murder  or  manslaughter  occur  in  a  year ;  that  is,  one 
in  every  250,000  of  the  population.  In  the  second  case,  it 
may  probably  be  said,  although  no  exact  statistics  are  avail- 
able, that  during  the  war  the  number  of  men  who  refused  to 
kill  to  order  has  hardly  been  more  proportionately,  that  is, 
one  in  25,000,  in  both  eases  a  whol}^  insignificant  percentage. 

Now,  individual  men  have  of  course  just  as  much  an  inborn 
right  to  love  killing  or  to  hate  it  as  to  order  or  forbid  others 
to  kill ;  but  even  here  it  is  seen  to  be  more  fitting  to  refer  to 
such  variations  not  as  rights,  but  as  divergent  possibilities  of 
human  nature.  In  particular,  to  order  and  forbid  anything  is 
to  place  limitations  on  it  in  precisely  the  same  sort  of  way  as 
limitations  are  placed  on  every  natural  phenomenon.  Every 
stone  falls;  that  is,  it  must  fall,  or,  if  you  will,  it  has  a  right 
to  fall.  Indeed,  we  have  become  accustomed  to  describe  this 
as  a  natural  law.  But  we  need  only  put  a  sufficiently  strong 
support  beneath  it,  and  the  stone,  although  still  having  a 
right  (!)  to  fall,  ceases  to  do  so.  We  may  say  that  it  has  now 
merely  a  tendency  to  fall. 

If  now  I  place  limitations  on  a  stone  on  every  side, — in 
other  words,  if  I  build  it  into  a  building, — then  I  deprive  it  of 
a  number  of  possibilities  of  movement,  though  not  of  all.  It 
still  expands  when  the  sun  shines  on  it  and  trembles  when 
sounds  are  made.  Indeed,  owing  to  its  cohesion  with  the 
other  stones  it  has  actually  acquired  more  stability  and  force 
of  resistance,  but  it  is  no  longer  possible  for  it  to  fall  down  at 
will,  or,  for  instance,  to  bash  in  a  man's  head. 


ALTRUISM  407 

Even  so  are  hiimau  beings  welded  together  into  large  or- 
ganizations. Their  "tendencies"  or  "inborn  rights"  still  ex- 
ist, but  it  has  become  impossible  for  them  to  give  way  to  these 
tendencies.  Thns  any  one  belonging  to  a  state  can  no  longer 
murder  at  will,  because  by  so  doing  he  ceases  to  be  a  member 
of  that  state.^  It  is  therefore  merely  idle  to  refer  to  these  so- 
called  inborn  human  rights.  They  are  far  too  numerous, 
and  being  altogether  peculiar  to  the  person,  cannot  be  made 
the  same  for  every  one. 

Conversely  we  may  claim  that  any  one  feeling  absolutely 
impelled  to  wage  war  has  a  right  to  feel  thus,  and  is  also  en- 
titled to  act  upon  his  impulse,  provided  societ}^  in  general 
does  not  prevent  him  from  so  doing.  But  any  one  feeling  ab- 
solutely impelled  to  protest  against  war  has  also  an  inalienable 
right  to  do  so,  and  is  also  entitled  to  protest  openly,  pro- 
vided society  in  general  do  not  prevent  him  from  so  doing. 
To  put  it  briefly,  it  is  open  to  every  living  thing,  everything 
that  exists  at  all,  to  gain  a  foothold  for  itself,  and  it  tends  to 
do  this,  and  therefore  has  a  right  to  do  so.  But  this  means 
struggle;  and  it  is  this  innate,  inalienable  right  to  struggle 
which  is  the  highest  thing  known  to  mankind.  Now,  not  a 
single  one  of  all  these  rights  for  which  we  may  struggle  is  pre- 
ferred before  any  other.  Hence  it  does  not  seem  possible  to 
make  any  general  deduction  from  them.  The  right  to  strug- 
gle is  the  one  thing  ever  present;  and  it  might  be  contended 
that  it  is  the  only  truly  natural  right  which  can  he  recognized. 

§  U8.—rhe  Right  to  War 

Here  we  come  in  contact  with  the  unique  problem  of  war; 
and  it  would  seem  as  if  this  unrestricted  struggle  of  all  against 
all  must  mean  hopeless  anarchy  and  never-ending  war;  but 
this  is  only  apparently  so.     Suppose  we  are  determined  to 

1  Even  Seneca  compares  human  society  to  a  stone  vault  which  wonhl 
collapse  if  one  part  did  not  support  another  (Societas  iinntra  Inpiilitn 
forniratinni  siniilliiua  est:  quae  casura,  nisi  invicem  ohstarent.  hoc  ipso 
sustinetui:     Seneca,  •'Epistola-,"  1)5 J 


408  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

exercise  this  right  to  struggle  and  to  survive,  but  not  after 
the  manner  of  a  stone  or  a  bomb,  M^hich  flies  on  its  way  and 
attains  its  aim  by  senseless  destriiction  of  every  obstacle,  un- 
less it  meet  with  equally  senseless  destruction  by  encountering 
too  severe  resistance.  Suppose,  rather,  that  we  mean  to  exer- 
cise our  right  as  thinking  persons,  knowing  what  we  want. 
Then  we  must  be  quite  clear  as  to  what  we  are  really  fighting 
for,  and  for  love  of  whom — for  ourselves,  for  the  country,  for 
civilization,  for  our  God,  or  for  whatsoever  else.  Further- 
more, we  must  consider  the  means  wherewith  we  are  going 
to  wage  our  struggle,  for  struggle  does  not  necessarily  mean 
war.  War  is  only  one  of  the  many  possible  variations  of 
struggle,  which  can  be  carried  on  in  all  manner  of  ways — 
by  persuasion  or  by  force,  b}-  labor  or  by  destruction,  by  the 
work  of  the  head  or  by  that  of  the  hand. 

Hence  there  are  many  objects  of  struggle  and  many  ways 
of  struggling,  and  in  each  individual  case  the  question  arises 
whether  a  particular  weapon  will  serve  to  attain  any  particu- 
lar purpose.  For  instance,  even  the  most  narrow-minded 
theologians  must  have  perceived  by  now  that,  if  a  man  wishes 
to  fight  for  his  God,  he  had  best  not  have  recourse  to  cannon, 
as  for  many  hundreds  of  years  was  thought  to  be  the  case. 
In  fact,  it  is  altogether  questionable  whether  war  is  the  best 
means  of  attaining  any  human  object  whatever,  whether  na- 
tional or  cosmopolitan. 

Now,  supposing  we  admit  a  natural  right  to  struggle,  and 
see  the  Alpha  and  Omega  of  all  progress  in  "inspiring  war." 
Then,  I  say,  we  are  obliged  to  ask  of  what  use  war  has  been 
and  of  what  use  it  can  be.  It  is  this  practical  aspect  of  the 
question  of  war  with  which  I  hope  to  deal,  and  I  trust  I  shall 
show  that  war  is  not  a  suitable  method  of  attaining  any  con- 
ceivable purpose.  This,  however,  does  not  quite  go  to  the 
root  of  the  matter,  for  then  we  must  assume  that  all  human 
beings  act  with  a  definite  purpose.  But  there  may  be  people 
who  refuse  to  admit  the  need  for  having  a  set  purpose,  sa;\Tng 
that  just  as  they  take  delight  in  a  woman's  embraces  without 


ALTRUISM  409 

any  consciousness  of  an  "inspiring  purpose,"  similarly  they 
take  delight  in  war,  and  mean  to  wage  war,  even  were  there  no 
object  in  so  doing,  but  merely  for  war's  sake.  Was  not  the 
Venus  Hetaira  always  more  beloved  than  the  Venus  Genetrix? 
Such  persons  must  be  accepted  as  a  fact,  and  we  have  no 
right  to  criticize  them  even  if  we  dislike  them.  The  only  way 
to  get  the  better  of  them  is  by  natural  science,  which  sets  out 
from  no  preconceived  ideas  whatever.  Now  for  the  first  time 
the  full  advantage  of  this  method  will  appear  in  the  matter  of 
the  dissemination  of  truth. 

Natural  science  asks  under  what  conditions  a  stone  falls, 
and  under  what  conditions  it  does  not  fall,  taking  no  account 
of  whether  in  falling  it  does  harm  or  not.  So  must  we  pro- 
ceed in  regard  to  war,  first,  purely  inductively  and  empir- 
ically stating  the  conditions  which,  considering  how  many  out- 
lets there  are  for  human  energy,  have  yet  made  war  a  ne- 
cessity. No  other  method  of  procedure  would  lead  us  to  a 
clear  issue.  Frischeisen-Kohler,^  for  instance,  tries  to  prove 
deductively  that  it  is  possible  for  the  world  to  live  at  peace, 
and  comes  to  the  conclusion  that  "no  natural  evolution  can 
cause  the  disappearance  of  wars,"  and  this  precisely  because 
"they  are  not  a  natural  necessity." 

At  first  we  are  inclined  to  think  that  here  is  a  misprint,  and 
that  the  word  "not"  ought  to  have  been  omitted;  for  if  war 
is  really  a  necessity,  then  it  can  not  become  extinct,  whereas, 
on  the  contrary,  if  it  is  not  a  necessity,  then  it  has  no  real 
justification  for  its  existence,  and  may  very  easily  become 
extinct.  Frischeisen-Kohler,  however,  really  means  what  he 
writes,  and  hence  his  deductions  are  not  so  wholly  illogical. 
If  we  assume  that  anything  in  the  world  is  there  by  chance, 
then  its  further  evolution  must  also  be  chance,  and  nothing 
definite  can  be  predicted  about  it.  The  Berlin  philosopher's 
conclusion,  therefore,  is  wholly  unimportant.     His  premises 

i"Das  Problem  des  ewigen  Friedens"  ("The  Problem  of  Porpetual 
Peace"),  by  the  still  living  German  philosopher  Frischeisen-Kohler. 
MUller:  Berlin,  1915. 


410  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

are  that  war  is  a  chance  event,  but  from  this  it  neither  follows 
that  it  will  continue  to  exist  nor  that  it  will  pass  away. 

Hence,  in  order  to  form  a  profitable  conception  of  war,  it 
was  needful  first  and  foremost  to  endeavor  to  conceive  it  as  a 
necessity  in  isolated  instances;  for  only  when  we  see  under 
what  conditions  it  is  necessary  can  we  decide  under  what  con- 
ditions it  is  superfluous,  or,  rather,  impossible.^ 

§  149. — The  Law  of  the  Organism 

We  know  now  that  war  was,  so  to  speak,  a  passing  phase  in 
man's  strivings  after  higher  things ;  we  know  that  that  day  has 
really  gone  by,  and  that  it  survives  only  by  virtue  of  a  right 
sanctified  by  custom.  And  now  we  can  inquire  what  is  the 
real,  and,  as  we  think,  indestructible  and  eternal  principle  of 
man.  It  may,  it  is  true,  be  asked  whether  there  is,  after  all, 
any  such  principle,  and  "whether,  beyond  the  categorical  im- 
peratives of  the  individual  human  being,  there  exists  an  auto- 
cratic, superordinate  imperative  that  applies  to  all  human  be- 
ings alike,  and  by  which  the  justifications  of  individual  im- 
peratives may  be  gaged.  Now,  we  shall  find  that  there  is  such 
a  universal  moral  law,  and,  strange  as  this  may  at  first  sight 
appear,  it  is  based  upon  man's  physical  nature.  Hence  it  is 
categorical  in  quite  another  sense  than  that  in  which  Buddha, 
Christ,  or  Kant  could  insist  on  their  moral  laws  being  cate- 
gorical. Its  precepts,  however,  are  identical  with  those  of 
tliese  three  teachers. 

This  universal  moral  law,  moreover,  could  be  inferred  as 
soon  as  the  conception  of  natural  law  was  made  clearer.  A 
right  based  on  the  decision  of  an  individual  man  alone  must 
always  be  (luestionable  so  long  as  it  may  conflict  with  other 
rights.  The  basis  of  such  a  natural  right  or  natural  tend- 
ency must  therefore  be  some  independent  organism  which  has 
no  need  to  respect  any  rights  but  its  own. 

Now,  here  on  earth,  first,  the  individual  man,  and,  secondly, 

1  Cf.  the  cbapterH  on  the  justification  for  war  from  the  point  of  view 
of  the  natural  scientist. 


ALTRTTISM  411 

the  human  organism  as  a  whole  alone  fulfil  these  conditions. 
The  individual  man  owes  his  privileged  position  to  the  fact, 
which  no  one  can  well  deny,  that  his  functions  form  together 
a  comparatively  complete  and  independent  whole.  The  com- 
plete human  organism,  supposing  it  to  exist  at  all,  which  is 
what  we  mean  to  prove,  has  of  course  the  same  privileged  sit- 
uation. Humanity  as  a  whole,  indeed,  is  upon  earth  virtually 
entirely  cut  off  from  ancient  superordinate  cosmic  influences, 
and  thus  is  not  obliged  to  respect  any  rights  of  others. 

All  connecting  terms,  however,  such  as  the  family  or  the 
state  are  only  casual  and  mutable  products  of  our  changing 
customs,  and  can  therefore  not  be  considered  as  natural,  but 
at  most  as  conventional  agglomerations.  The  only  organisms 
which  are  immutable,  and  consequently  above  all  conventions, 
must  be  the  individual  man  and  mankind  in  general.  They 
therefore  form  the  basis  of  all  right,  and  there  is  only  the  right 
of  mankind  in  general  and  the  right  of  the  individual  man  who 
is  aware  that  he  is  in  the  right  as  regards  all  the  world.  Then, 
but  only  then,  is  he  justified  in  being  a  revolutionar3\ 

The  sensation  which  we  experience  because  we  feel  we  all 
belong  to  one  vast  organism  we  call  altruism;  but  that  which 
we  experience  because  of  the  fact  that  we  as  personalities 
to  a  certain  extent  form  distinct  individual  organisms  we  call 
egoism.  Altruism  and  egoism  are  therefore  not  unconditional 
opposites,  but  the  same  sentiment  directed  to  a  different  object. 
Egoism  we  need  not  stop  to  consider;  it  flourishes  like  the 
green  bay-tree:  altruism  must  be  proved  to  be  the  necessary 
equivalent  of  something  actually  genuine. 

4. — THE    HISTORY   OF   ALTRUISM 

§  150. — The  Twofold  Basis  of  Altruism 

All  morality  is  based  on  the  presence  of  altmism. 
The   word   itself   is   new,   having   been   coined   scarcely   a 
hundred  years  ago  by  Comte,'  who  rightly  considered  it  as 

1  This  is  according  to  the  German  philosopher  Fisler. 


412  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

embracing   all   the   conditions  of  civilization   and   morality. 

The  term  is  used  by  every  one  in  much  the  same  sense,  for, 
after  all,  it  is  merely  a  verbal  difference  whether  a  desire 
be  called  altruistic  if  it  be  likely  to  benefit  others/  or  to  satisfy 
them,^  or  in  general  to  do  them  "good."  ^  The  only  point  of 
disagreement  is  how  far  altruism  serves  a  good  purpose  or  is 
allowable.  It  is  possible  to  be  altruistic  without  limit,  as 
certain  Christians  would  fain  have  us  be;  but  altruism  can 
also  be  restricted  by  declaring  it  contrary  to  morality  unless 
it  promote  human  evolution,  or,  in  the  words  of  the  German 
philosopher  Cornelius,*  if  it  takes  account  of  the  emotional 
experiences  of  our  individual  fellow-men,  but  only  of  what 
is  permanently  beneficial  to  the  world  in  general. 

It  is  not  till  we  come  to  the  basis  of  altruism  that  opinions 
are  divided.  Can  altruistic  sentiments  arise  in  man  ?  And  if 
so,  how?  And  can  an  individual  man,  apparently  apart,  put 
himself,  as  it  were,  absolutely  in  the  place  of  another?  And 
if  so,  how  ?  These  questions  are  generally  answered  in  two  dia- 
metrically opposite  ways.  The  simpler  way  of  getting  out  of 
the  difiSculty  is  to  say  that  altruism,  like  so  much  else,  is  in- 
nate. We  can  understand  why  the  ancients  said  this,  since 
they  knew  nothing  about  the  history  of  evolution.  Aristotle  ^ 
calls  man  simply  a  C^ov  ttoXitxov  ;  the  Stoa  ^  believed  that  man 
was  a  social  animal  for  the  good  of  the  nations  in  general; 
and,  finally,  Hume  speaks  of  man  having  an  innate  sense  of 
what  is  generally  for  the  best.  All  this  we  can  understand, 
but  when  Spencer  ^  says  that  altruism  is  as  primogenial  as 

1  As  does  Herbert  Spencer  in  his  "Principles  of  Morality,"  §  72,  1892. 

2  As  does  the  German  philosopher  Theodor  Lipps  in  "Ethische 
Grundfragen"   ("Root  Questions  of  Ethics"),  p.  11.     1889. 

3  As  does  the  German-Galician  philosopher  Alexius  Meinong  in 
"Untersiichungen  zur  Werttheorie"  ("Investigations  into  the  Theory  of 
Values"),   p.   99.     1899. 

4"Einleitung  in  die  Philosophie"  ("An  Introduction  to  Philosophy") 
by  the  German  philosopher  H.  Cornelius.     1903. 

5  Aristotle's  "Politica,"  I,  2. 

6  Cf.  Seneca,  L.  A.  5,  de  Ira  II,  3. 

7  "Principles  of  Morality,"  §  76.     1892. 


ALTRUISM  413 

egoism ;  when  John  Stuart  Mill  ^  and  Wilhelm  "Wundt  repeat 
almost  precisely  the  same  thing ;  and  when  Simmel  ^  calls 
altruism  an  inherited  instinct,  but  Ribot,^  says  the  altruistic 
instinct  is  inherited,  then  we  can  only  say  they  might  have 
known  that  they  were  really  saying  nothing  at  all. 

Those  who  consider  altruism  as  egoism  in  disguise  are  more 
logical ;  but  even  this  view  is  old,  and  in  reality  it  is  held  by  all 
religions,  which  certainly  do  insist  on  altruism;  but  probably 
because  their  founders  are  mostly  intellectual  weaklings,  they 
consider  the  satisfaction  of  a  selfish  sentiment  of  happiness 
as  the  sole  motive  for  morality.  Thus  they  try  to  encourage 
altruism  by  first  appealing  to  egoism,  by  promising  either 
earthly  bliss  (as  in  the  fourth  commandment  of  Moses),  or 
bliss  in  a  visionary  immortality. 

We  have  three  direct  testimonies  ^  to  the  fact  that  Christ  said 
that  self-sacrifice — that  is,  altruism — is  in  reality  the  sublimest 
form  of  egoism.  "Whosoever  will  save  his  life  shall  lose  it; 
but  whosoever  shall  lose  his  life  for  my  sake  and  the  gospel's, 
the  same  shall  save  it. "  (Mark  viii,  35.)  There  could  not  be 
a  gro.sser  tribute  to  the  egoism  innate  in  every  human  being; 
but  almost  all  religious  doctrines  are  alike  in  this  respect. 
Christ  finds  eternal  bliss  in  the  "bej'ond,"  and  the  Buddhist 
blessed  oblivion,  the  Mohanmiedan  finds  houris,  and  the  Indian 
well  stocked  liunting-gi'uunds.  Even  the  religious  Seneca^ 
says,  with  an  egoistic  undertone,  "Wilt  thou  truly  live  for 
thyself,   then   must  thuu   live   for  others." 

Even  if  in  religions  the  egoistic  impulse  appears  only  in 
disguise,  yet  it  is  afterward  frankly  and  consciously  expressed, 

1  Collected  \\ork8,  1869. 

^  "Einleitung  in  die  Moiahvissenschaft"  ("Introduction  to  Moral  Sci- 
ence") by  tlie  still  living  (Jerman  pliilosopher  Simmel,  published  1892. 
I,  92. 

3  "Psydiologie  dea  Sentiments,"  1896,  by  Th^odule  Armand  Ribot, 
§  325.      (Translated  into  English  as  "The  Psychology  of  the  Emotions.") 

4  Matthew   X,  39;    Mark   \T1I,  3n:    Luke  XVH,  33;   John  XII,  25. 
6"Alti'ri  vivere  oportet,  si  vis  tibi  vivere."     Seneca's  "Epistol*,"  48, 

11      Cf.  also  60  IV. 


414  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

particularly  by  British  writers.  For  instance,  Hobbes  ^  at- 
tributes right  and  morality  to  selfish  impulses  toward  self- 
preservation  and  to  the  fact  that  we  are  all  mutually  dependent 
on  one  another.  Hobbes  agrees  that  as  man  soon  perceived 
that  he  got  along  better  if  he  took  others'  interests  into  con- 
sideration, he  acts  altruistically  from  egoistic  motives. 

Those  who  argued  thus  are  in  general  the  same  as  those  who 
attributed  right  to  utility.  (Cf.  §  151.)  What  they  have  is 
all  very  well  as  far  as  it  goes.  Yet  all  high-sounding  phrases, 
such  as  Ihering's  "egoism  of  groups"  and  Meinong's  "self- 
less egoism"^  are  mere  definitions,  and  explain  nothing. 
Also  it  matters  little  whether  we  love  or  hate  egoism.  Kant, 
for  instance,^  says  it  is  the  self-seeking  element  in  man's 
sensual  nature  which  is  ' '  radically  wrong. ' '  Diihring  *  even 
says  that  egoism  is  nowise  natural,  but  a  product  of  degeneracy 
and  corruption.  On  the  other  hand,  Schopenhauer  ^  describes 
egoism  (that  "impulse  toward  being  and  well-being")  as  the 
mainspring  of  action  both  in  human  beings  and  animals. 
Stiruer  ^  declares  that  the  Ego  is  autocratic ;  and  finally  Niet- 
zsche ^  insists  that  the  egoistic  view  of  the  world  is  the  ruling 
morality  and  above  the  altruistic  morality  of  slave.  All  which 
views  and  definitions  matter  equally  much  or  equally  little. 

§151. — The  Development  of  the  ''English"  Doctrine  of 
Utilitarianism 

In  reality  these  two  possible  bases  of  morality  are  no  longer 

1  Hobbes,  "De  Cive"  C  I,  §  2. 

2  Alexius  Meinong,  1  c,  p.  103. 

3  Kant's  "Kritik  der  praktischen  Vernunft"  ("Critique  of  practical 
Reason"),   17H8.     Part  1,  Vol.  1,  2,  and  "Anthropologie,"   I,  §  2. 

4  "Wirklichkeitsphilosophie"  ("Philosophy  of  I{eality")  by  Eugen 
Diihring,    1878,   p.    139. 

s '"Uber  die  Grundlagen  der  Moral"  ("The  Foundations  of  Morality) 
§    1840. 

fi"Der  einzige  und  scin  Eigentiim"  ("Tlie  Individual  and  his  Prop- 
erty'")   by  Max  Stirner   (real  name  Kaspar  Schmidt),  1845. 

7  In  "Zarathustra,"  but  the  idea  is  more  definitely  expressed  in 
"Jenseits  von  Gut  und  Bose,"  by  Friedrich  Nietzsche. 


ALTRUISM  415 

of  much  interest,  to-day.  But  the  antithesis  between  the  two 
points  of  view  to  a  certain  extent  still  concerns  us,  because 
we  in  Germany  have  been  accustomed  proudly  to  insist  on  the 
fact  that,  instead  of  a  utilitarian  morality  fit  only  for  a  na- 
tion of  shopkeepers,  we  possess  an  absolute  morality  based  on 
a  categorical  imperative;  and  that  this  morality  ordains  that 
every  one  shall  act  morally,  "however  much  he  may  injure 
himself  or  others  in  so  doing."  ^  Even  those  who  do  not  be- 
lieve in  such  an  absolute  morality  may  think  it  desirable,  at 
any  rate,  to  apply  some  form  of  morality,  even  should  it  be  on 
a  false  basis. 

Now,  we  may  readily  admit  that  Kant's  transcendental  mo- 
rality is  scarcely  suited  to  serve  as  a  basis  for  conduct  on  the 
battle-field;  and  the  German  1902  "Rules  of  Land  Warfare" 
are  accordingly  utilitarian,  whether  they  mean  to  be  so  or  not. 
Above  all,  however,  this  war  has  proved  that  it  is  just  the 
most  cultivated  persons  who  are  likely  to  say  to  themselves 
that,  as  they  cannot  now  follow  Kant's  moral  precepts,  al- 
though these  are  the  only  true  ones,  therefore  they  conform 
to  no  morality,  but  do  what  it  is  their  business  to  do  as  de- 
structive machines  under  the  stern  compulsion  of  iron  neces- 
sity. 

Now,  it  is  out  of  the  question  to  base  a  war  morality  on 
Kant's  "dignity  of  man."  Hence  we  ought,  and  indeed  a  na- 
tion at  war  must,  try  to  discover  some  other  basis  for  its  mor- 
ality. That  is,  unless  it  is  to  be  altgoether  at  sea.  Thus  the 
exigencies  of  war  quite  naturally  lead  us  toward  that  so-called 
"selfish  system"  which  we,  not  wholly  without  justification, 
are  accustomed  to  consider  a  somewhat  contemptible  speciality 
of  our  relatives  across  the  channel.  But  instead  of  endeavor- 
ing to  view  it  impartially,  our  pillars  of  civilization  are  just 
now  doing  their  utmost  to  pour  contempt  upon  it. 

The  chief  reason  for  the  scorn  with  which  utilitarianism  was 

1  "Cber  ein  vermeintliches  Recht,  aus  Menschenliehe  /u  liigen"  ("On 
the  alleged  right  to  lie  out  of  foiifiiderations  of  iiumanitv),  by  Kant, 
1797. 


416  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

received  is  probably  that  its  opponents  considered  that  utility 
must  necessarily  presuppose  a  selfish  motive,  which  is  both 
wrong  and  unjust.  I  have  already  shown,  and  in  Chapter 
XII  purpose  to  show  in  more  detail,  that  in  the  last  resort 
egoism  and  altruism  by  no  means  exclude  each  other,  but  are 
really  identical.  Now,  this  modern  view  it  is  which  is  mainly 
based  on  the  works  of  British  philosophers.  They  success- 
fully endeavored  to  combat  egoism  by  centering  all  their  re- 
flections around  the  race,  and  then  laying  down  "natural  laws 
of  benevolence." 

The  fact  that  in  Germany  we  are  still  violently  opposed  to 
the  British  is  probably  mainly  due  to  the  Christian  conserva- 
tive philosophers,  particularly  Professor  Immanuel  Hermann 
Fichte,^  the  son  of  the  great  Fichte,  and  Fredrich  Julius 
Stahl,-  member  of  the  High  Consistory  Court.  Both  these 
men,  in  the  worst  reactionary  period,  blackguarded  the  Eng- 
lish because  of  their  philosophy,  which,  as  Stahl  neatly  puts  it, 
tends  toward  revolution.  Moreover,  both  always  attribute 
purely  egoistic  views  to  Englishmen  whenever  the  latter  refer 
to  the  greatest  good  of  the  greatest  number  (that  is,  to  altru- 
ism). In  so  doing,  however,  they  utterly  ignore  Hume,  to 
whom  this  scarcely  applies  at  all,  and  also  Hutchinson.  But 
a  word  to  the  wise  is  sufificient,  and  it  was  the  opinions  of 
Fichte  and  Stahl  concerning  British  philosophy  which  pre- 
vailed. 

Now,  the  doctrine  propounded  by  Ilobbes  ^  in  the  middle 
of  the  seventeenth  century,  that  morality  Avas  due  to  utility, 
was  far  from  being  absolutely  new.  The  Epicurean  natural 
philosophers  had  already  prepared  men 's  minds  for  it.     Again, 

1  "Die  philosophischen  Lehren  von  Recht  iind  Sitte  in  Deutschland, 
Frankreich  und  England"  ("The  Philosophical  Doctrines  of  Law  and 
Morality  in  Germany,  France,  and  England),  by  J.  H.  Fichte,  18.50. 

2  "Pliilosophie  des  Rechtes  nach  griechiseher  Anischt"  ("The  Philos- 
ophy of  Right  according  to  the  Views  of  the  Greeks"),  by  Friedrich 
Julius   Stahl,    1830. 

3  "De  cive,"  Paris,  1642;  "De  hominis  natura":  London,  1650,  and 
"Leviathan,"  London,   1651. 


ALTRUISM  417 

at  almost  the  same  time  Spinoza^  was  teaching  similar  doc- 
trines at  Amsterdam,  which,  it  is  true,  had  for  some  years 
past  ceased  to  form  a  part  of  the  German  Empire,  but  was 
still  very  much  under  the  influence  of  German  ideas.  Nev- 
ertheless, it  is  true  that  Hobbes  was  the  first  systematically 
to  base  morality  on  utility.  English  philosophers,  such  as 
Butler-  and  Paley,^  Priestley,*  Hartley,^  and  particularly 
Jeremy  Beutham,^  who  in  1802  first  used  the  word  "Utilitari- 
anism," certainly  developed  this  doctrine ;  but  at  the  same  time 
they  did  more  and  more  to  efface  the  egoistic  substratum  of 
the  so-called  selfish  system  by  substituting  the  good  of  the 
community  in  general  for  the  good  of  the  individual  man.  It 
is  likewise  true  that  such  British  writers  as  Chesterfield  ^ 
and  Jonathan  Swift  ^  popularized  this  system,  sometimes  be- 
cause they  agreed  with  it,  and  sometimes  ironically. 

It  must  not  be  forgotten,  however,  that  the  impulse  given 
by  Hobbes  determined  the  whole  trend  of  ideas  throughout 
the  civilized  world  in  the  ensuing  period,  and  that  none  of 
the  succeeding  philosophers  in  any  civilized  country  could 
shake  off  his  influence.  Among  those  who  have  drawn  prac- 
tical inferences  from  his  works,  sometimes  pushing  them  to 
extremes,  the  Germans  were  well  to  the  fore ;  and  in  particular 
I  might  mention  Thomasius,^  Christian  Wolf,^°  Frederick  11,^^ 

1  The  chief  writings  of  Spinoza  which  here  come  into  consideration 
were  not  published  till  after  his  death. 

2  "Three  Sermons  on  Human  Nature,"  by  Bishop  Joseph  Butler,  1726. 
sPaley's  "'Principles  of  ]\Ioral  and  Political  Philosophy,"   1785, 

*, Joseph  Priestley's  "Doctrine  of  Philosophical  Necessity,"  1777. 

5  Hartley's  "Observations  of  Man,  His  Frame,  His  Duty,  and  His 
Expectations,"   1749. 

6  "Introduction  to  the  Principles  of  Morals  and  Legislation,"  by  Jeremy 
Bentham,  1789. 

7  Particularly  in  his  "Letters  to  his  Son,"  1774. 

8  Particularly  in  his  ''philosophical  tra\el  romance,"  "Gulliver's 
Travels,"  1726* 

9  Christian  Thomasius.  a  Saxon  philosopher  and  jurist,  "Einleitung 
zur  Sittenlehre,"    ("Introduction  to  the  Doctrine  of  Morality")    1692. 

10  "Philosophia  moralis,"  by  the  Silesian  philosopher.  Christian  Wolf. 

11  "Examen  du  prince  de  Machiavel,"  17.30,  by  Frederick  II  of 
Brandenburg.     See  also  many  passages  from  his  letters  to  Voltaire. 


418  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

and  Nicolai,^  also  II(jlbach,-  who  wrote  iu  French,  down  to 
Nietzsche.  And  modern  Oennan  jurists,  such  as  Beueke,^ 
Ihering,*  and  Gizycki,"^  to  say  nothing  of  such  men  as  Kohler, 
adopted  an  out  and  out  utilitarian  standpoint. 

On  the  other  hand,  Englishman,  especially  Locke,''  but  also 
Henry  More,^  Cudworth,^  Richard  Price,  and  most  of  all 
Shaftesbury,^  have  protested  against  this  utilitarian  doctrine. 

^lost  important  of  all,  however,  David  Hume,"  one  of  the 
most  brilliant  thinkers  whom  not  only  England,  but  the  woild, 
has  ever  known,  succeeded  in  showing,  basing  his  arguments 
on  Hobbes's  writings,  that  even  without  metaphysics  it  is  pos- 
sible, at  all  events,  to  recognize  the  fact  that  morality  may  be 
wholly  disinterested.  He  took  sympathy  as  the  mainspring  of 
his  ideas,  unconsciously  reverting  to  the  Peripatetics,  and 
Stoics'  conception  of  it.  These  schools  looked  upon  the  world 
as  being  held  together  by  sympathy  and  as  simply  the  ex- 
pression of  a  single  great  organism.     Hume  is  therefore  really 

1  Christoph  Friedrich  Nicolai  German  litterateur  and  bookseller. 
See  especially  many  volumes  of  his  "Allgemeine  deutsche  Bibliothek," 
("Universal  German  Library"),  in  which  he  voiced  the  opposition  to 
Kant,  Fichte,  and  Goethe;  that  is,  to  the  then  new  movement  of  thought. 

2  "Elements  de  la  morale  universelle,"  by  Paul  Heinrich  Thyry  d"Hol- 
bach,  1776. 

3  "Griindsatze  der  Zivil — und  Kriminalgesetzgebung"  ("Principles  of 
Civil  and  Criminal  Legislation")   by  M.  Beneke,  1S30. 

4"Kampf  ums  Recht"  ("The  Fight  for  the  Right"  i,  in  particular 
"Der  Zweck  im  Recht"  ("The  Object  of  Right"),  by  Rudolf  von  Ihering, 
pp.  77-83. 

5  "Philosophische  Konsequenzen  der  Lamarck-Darwininschen  EnlAvick- 
lungstheorie"  ("The  Philosophical  Consequences  of  Lamarck's  and  Dar- 
win's theories  of  Evolution"'),  by  G.  von  Gizycki,  1876. 

6  "Essay  Concerning  Human  Understanding,"  by  John  Locke,  IGOO. 

7  "Enchiridion  ethicum,"  by  Henry  More,  1667. 

8  "Treatise  Concerning  Eternal  and  Immutable  Morality,"  by  Ralph 
Cudworth,  1731. 

9  "Characteristics  of  Men,  Manners,  Opinions  and  Times,"  by  Anthony 
Ashley  Cooper,  third  Earl  of  Shaftesbury,  1713. 

10  Plume  ventilated  such  arguments  even  in  1738  in  his  "Treatise  upon 
Human  Nature,"  published  at  the  age  of  twenty-seven.  In  his  later 
works  he  was  constantly  departing  from  modern  utilitarianism  and 
reverting  to  these  contentions. 


ALTRUISM  419 

the  founder  of  modem  morality,  which  is  no  longer  based  on 
metaphysics,  but  applies  to  all  human  beings  indiscriminately. 
His  doctrines  were  afterward  developed,  particularly  by  John 
Stuart  Mill,  Herbert  Spencer,  Adam  Smith,  and  Charles  Dar- 
win, and  to  some  extent  also  by  the  German  natural  philoso- 
phers. 

I  have  instanced  all  these  authors,  and  I  might  have  in- 
stanced many  more,  to  show  how  wrongly  men's  writings  are 
frequently  interpreted.  The  modern  doctrine  of  utilitarian- 
ism may,  in  short,  be  summarized  as  "that  the  aim  and  object 
of  our  actions  is  the  greatest  possible  happiness  of  the  greatest 
possible  number  of  human  beings.^' ^  Now  let  us  see  how 
Germany  insures  this. 

§  152. — The  Evolution  of  Kantian  Morality 

To  this  practical  maxim  Kant  ^  opposed  his  categorical  im- 
perative. He  based  it  on  doctrines  extending  back  as  far  as 
Plato,  although  on  practical  reason  as  well.  According  to 
Kant's  ''categorical  imperative,"  '"Man  ought  to  act  in  accord- 
ance with  a  maxim  which  may  at  the  same  time  prevail  as  a 
universal  law." 

Now,  without  expressing  an  opinion  as  to  the  value  of  and 
basis  for  these  two  maxims,  it  is  certain  that  any  one  desirous 
of  acting  morally  can  do  so  without  infringing  either;  but  it 
is  not  so  certain  that  any  one  following  only  one  of  them 
must  act  morally  in  all  circumstances.  At  all  events,  no  gen- 
eral injustice  could  ever  result  from  the  so-called  English 
doctrine,  although  from  the  "German"  doctrine  a  good  deal 
inevitably  follows  which,  leaving  objective  justice  out  of  ac- 
count, seems  to  us,  after  all,  subjectively  right  and  reasonable. 

Hence  the  English  doctrine  is  undoubtedly  more  practical 
than  that  of  Kant,  because  an  objective  test  can  be  applied  to 
it;  whereas,  however  much  we  may  try  to  avoid  it,  there  will 

1  "Introduction  to  the  Principles  of  Morals  and  Legislation,"  by 
Jeremy  l^entliam,  II,  cliap.  17,  p.  234 

2  Kant's  "Metaplijeik  der  Sitten"  ("Metaphysics  of  Morals"). 


420  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

always  be  a  subjective  remainder  in  the  ease  of  a  categorical 
imperative.  Besides  this,  Kant's  doctrine,  strictly  interpreted, 
cannot  be  carried  out  in  practice.  Human  beings,  after  all, 
vary  greatly,  and  there  is  no  universal  maxim  applicable  alike 
to  a  weak-brained  person  and  to  a  genius.  For  instance,  a 
genius  has  a  right  to  revolt,  but  if  every  human  being  claimed 
such  a  right,  the  result  would  be  universal  anarchy.  Whether 
a  person,  however,  has  a  right  to  resist  this  sluggish  world,  lie 
alone  can  decide ;  and  if  he  does  so  without  regard  to  the  inter- 
ests of  people  in  general,  then  he  drifts  about  aimlessly  on  the 
ocean  of  limitless  subjectivity. 

Now,  it  is  certain  that  an  upright  man  will  act  uprightly 
quite  apart  from  Kant,  Hobbes,  or  Hume;  while  a  rogue  will 
remain  a  rogue,  whether  he  call  himself  a  Kantian  or  a  dis- 
ciple of  Hobbes.  It  does  not  seem  a  mere  chance,  however, 
that  Hobbes  should  have  been  bom  in  England  and  Kant  in 
Germany,  although  he  was  of  British  descent.  The  Germans 
have  always  considered  independent,  original  thought  as  their 
speciality,  and  often  as  their  privilege  as  well.  In  this  respect 
the}'  believe  themselves  superior  to  all  other  nations ;  whereas 
the  Englishman's  love  of  tradition  and  of  old-established  law 
was  often  ridiculed  as  a  feeling  akin  to  that  of  slaves  ac- 
customed to  be  driven  in  gangs.  Your  Englishman,  it  was 
said,  is,  after  all,  a  slave,  despite  his  political  liberty. 

Some  such  distinction  there  would  really  seem  to  be,  and 
its  causes  are  probably  to  be  found  deep  down  in  the  edu- 
cation and  peculiar  genius  of  the  German  and  English  nations. 
It  profoundly  influences  all  the  external  aspects  of  life,  par- 
ticularly those  practical  notions  of  right  which  have  developed 
in  both  nations  as  time  has  gone  on.  Schopenhauer  assuredly 
manifested  extraordinary  psychological  perspicacity  when  he 
said  ^  that  the  German  is  all  for  equity,  but  the  Briton  is  for 
justice,  adding,  "that  equity  is  the  enemy  of  justice,  and 
often  grossly  conflicts  with  it." 

1  "Die  beiden  Grundprobleme  der  Ethik"  ("The  Two  Root  Problems  of 
Fthirs"),  by  Schopenhauer,  II,  §  17,  p.  222. 


ALTRriSM  421 

This  is  not  the  place  to  discuss  which  is  the  nobler  quality, 
objective  justice  or  subjective  equity,  although  personally  I 
incline  to  Schopenhauer's  view  that  if  human  beings  are  to 
be  able  to  live  together,  justice  is  of  much  the  more  impor- 
tance.    In  any  case,  justice  is  more  suited  to  everyday  life. 

It  is  interesting  to  trace  what  has  happened  in  Germany. 
Setting  out  from  Kant,  we  have  gradually,  by  a  circuitous 
route,  via  equity,  come  utterly  to  deny  laws  of  universal  ap- 
plication  and  wholly  to  accept  a  utilitarian  doctrine.  In  Eng- 
land, on  the  contrary,  men  have  set  out  from  Ilobbes,  and  have 
arrived,  by  a  circuitous  route,  via  Hume's  "sympathy,"  un- 
conditionally to  admit  established  standards. 

Kant's  morality  is  based  on  the  subjective  categorical  im- 
perative, and  it  is  no  chance  that  such  a  pessimist  as  Schopen- 
hauer, such  an  ultra-radical  as  Stirner,  and  such  a  superman 
as  Nietzsche,  all  alleged  that  the  basis  of  their  philosophy  was 
Kant.  Even  if  it  cannot  for  a  moment  be  suggested  that  the 
ideas  of  any  one  of  these  three  were  unethical,  the  fact  remains 
that  it  is  their  school  which  has  produced  such  men  as  Moltke 
and  Beruhardi,  who  proclaim  the  doctrine  that  for  the  strong 
man  every  means,  even  forcible  means,  of  getting  stronger  is 
allowable. 

§153. — The  Abuse  of  Kant's  Doctrine 

Now,  even  in  the  "Handbook  of  the  Usages  of  Land  War- 
fare," published  by  the  German  General  Staff,  the  principle  is 
always  adopted  that  the  necessities  of  war  override  any  writ- 
ton  law  introduced  by  international  conventions.  The  attitude 
to  be  adopted  toward  restrictive  legislation  of  this  kiiid  de- 
pends on  the  judgment  of  the  persons  concerned. 

It  is  easy  to  see  that  such  instructions,  which  take  no  count 
of  anything  except  of  possible  advantage,  strike  at  the  very 
roots  of  all  international  agreements,  and  in  particular  they 
make  the  precepts  of  the  Hague  Convention  about  the  laws 
and  customs  of  land  warfare  virtually  illusory.  As  I  have 
frequently  pointed  out,  war  is  restricted  and  in  a  sense  im- 


422  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

peded  by  such  conventions.  But  if  a  nation  signs  them,  then 
in  so  doing  it  binds  itself  thenceforward  to  wage  war  under 
these  more  difficult  conditions. 

No  one  denies  that  the  general  staff  was  justified  in  assum- 
ing that,  judging  by  the  experience  of  warfare,  France  would 
be  most  successfully  attacked  by  a  march  through  Belgium. 
The  chief  ground  for  this  assumption,  however,  must  have 
been  that  France,  relying  somewhat  on  international  conven- 
tions, had  fortified  this  part  of  her  frontier  less  than  any 
others.  But  whether  France  could  be  most  successfully  at- 
tacked via  Belgium  or  not  was  no  longer  the  question.  By  the 
neutrality  law  of  1839  Germany  had  become  a  guarantor  of 
the  inviolability  of  Belgium,  and  in  so  doing  she  herself 
erected  an  insurmountable  wall  along  the  Belgian  frontier. 
She  herself  had  put  an  obstacle  in  the  way  of  war,  just  as 
France  had  done,  although  this  is  now  beside  the  point.  And 
now  it  was  for  Germany  to  fight  under  these  more  difficult 
conditions. 

She  did  not  do  so.  She  set  herself  up  above  objective  justice 
as  laid  down  by  conventions,  arguing  that  there  was  so  much 
at  stake  for  Germany  that  it  was  allowable  for  her  to  do  what 
best  suited  her  own  purposes  without  troubling  about  law.  I 
am  firmly  convinced  that  both  the  grand  general  staff  and 
Bethmann-Hollweg,  who  defended  Germany's  action,  were 
subjectively  absolutely  convinced  that  in  this  particular  case 
they  did  right  to  substitute  Germany's  advantage  for  Ger- 
many's duty  and  that  the  laws  of  ecjuity  justified  their  action. 
But  these  laws  of  equity  can  never  be  definitely  ascertained, 
and  Germans  must  not  be  surprised  if  others,  both  nations 
and  individual  men,  do  not  altogether  appreciate  them.  Eng- 
land, however,  declared  war  as  a  guarantor  of  the  inviolability 
of  Belgian  neutrality,  as  it  was  her  duty  to  do  in  accordance 
with  the  wording  of  the  law  which  guaranteed  it. 

Since  the  war  began  there  have  been  more  cases  of  objective 
violations  of  law.  I  omit  all  mention  of  horrible  isolated  acts, 
which  may  be  excused  on  the  ground  of  fear,  confusion,  lack 


ALTRUISM  423 

of  discipline,  or  absence  of  supervision;  but  some  proclama- 
tions of  General  von  Biilow,  Lieuteuant-General  von  Nieber, 
and  Field-^larshal  von  der  Goltz  cannot  be  explained  except  as 
deliberate  violations  of  law.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  authors 
of  these  proclamations  knew  that  they  flatly  conflict  with  the 
regulations  of  the  Second  Hague  Conference/  For  instance, 
according  to  Article  50  of  the  Hague  Convention,  no  general- 
ized punishment  in  money  or  otherwise  may  be  inflicted ;  -  the 
torpedoing  of  merchant  vessels  conflicts  with  the  convention 
concerning  prize  courts ;  the  use  of  poisonous  gases  is  expressly 
forbidden,  etc.     All  which  is  bad,  but  not  the  worse. 

War  is  not  a  moral  action.  Now,  whoever  says  A  must  also 
say  B,  and  he  cannot  be  reproached  even  if  he  does  so  with 
dogged  determination.  There  is  no  excuse,  however,  for  the 
hypocrisy  of  those  who  have  remained  at  home — a  hypocrisy 
now  coming  to  light  everywhere.  We  can  understand  men 
losing  their  heads  when  they  see  the  sky  illuminated  with  the 
light  of  burning  villages,  but  there  is  no  excuse  whatever  for 
those  who  write  their  proclamations  by  the  peaceful  light  of 
their  study  lamp.  Those  who  assert  that  German  militarism 
and  German  civilization  are  not  a  contradiction  in  terms  are 
quite  right.  Even  in  peace-time,  under  the  influence  of  mili- 
tarism, there  were  many  who  used  to  advocate  individualist 
or,  at  any  rate,  social  "Euda^monism"  of  the  most  outrageous 
description,  and  only  too  frequently  they  concluded  by  an 
appeal  to  Kant.^  Now,  in  war-time,  this  has  become  every- 
where the  fashion  in  Germany. 

But  let  us  leave  this  wretched  bastard,  the  product  of  the 
womb  of  Athene,  goddess  of  wisdom,  impregnated  by  Mars — a 

1  "To  be  lioped,"  because,  let  us  hope,  that  German  generals  are  ac- 
quainted  with  the  Hague  Conferenee  regulations. 

^  Cf.  the  late  Professor  Emile  Waxweiler's  "Hat  Belgien  sein  Suhick- 
sal  verdient?"  ("Did  Belgium  deserve  her  Fate?")  Orall  Fiisste: 
Ziirifh. 

3  Euduemonism  means  happiness  or  well-being,  and  in  modern  ethies 
is  used  to  denote  a  general  type  of  ethical  theory  equally  removed  from 
the  extremes  of  hedonism  and  abstract  rationalism. — Translator. 


424  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

union  which  horrified  even  the  imagination  of  the  ancients, 
none  too  fastidious  when  it  came  to  a  question  of  the  illegiti- 
mate intercourse  of  the  gods. 

It  may  be,  indeed,  that  there  is  neither  an  absolute  nor  even 
any  relative  morality,  and  that  consequently  we  need  abide  by 
no  sort  of  moral  laws  whatever.  Our  martial  philosophers  are 
perhaps  more  nearly  right  than  they  will  even  confess  to  them- 
selves in  the  coming  time  of  calm  consideration  and  reversion 
to  the  eternal  Kant.  But  one  thing  is  certain:  Kant's  own 
country  is  already  conquered. 

§  154. — A  Change  of  Parts  and  a  Comedy  in  Consequence 

In  conclusion,  let  me  cite  a  curious  parallel.  If  we  set  out 
from  the  delusion  that  Kantian  ethics  prevail  in  Germany,  and 
utilitarianism  in  England,  then  just  now  both  nations  seem  to 
have  changed  places.  A  dramatic  instance  of  this  is  the  inter- 
view ^  which  the  British  ambassador  had  on  the  evening  of 
August  4  with  the  German  Imperial  Chancellor,  which  is,  so 
to  speak,  a  confirmation  of  how  seldom  any  human  being's 
actions  are  influenced  by  his  theoretical  morality.  Bethmann- 
Hoilweg,  who  likes  to  be  called  a  Kantian,  says  that,  Would 
Great  Britain  for  a  mere  word  "neutrality,"  a  word  often 
disregarded  in  war-time,  for  a  mere  scrap  of  paper — would 
Great  Britain  wage  war  with  a  nation  akin  to  her  in  blood, 
whose  greatest  wish  it  was  to  be  friends  with  her?  For  purely 
strategical  reasons  it  is  a  matter  of  life  and  death  for  Germany 
to  march  through  Belgium  and  violate  her  neutrality. 

In  his  despatch  No.  160  to  Sir  Edward  Grey,  dated  August 
8,  1914,  from  London,  Sir  Edward  Goschen  saysr 

I  protested  strongly  against  that  statement  [that  is,  that  Great 
Britain  was  responsible  for  all  the  terrible  events  that  might  hap- 
pen], and  said  that,  in  the  same  way  as  he  and  Herr  von  Jagow 
wished  me  to  understand  that  for  strategical  reasons  it  was  a  matter 
of  life  and  death  to  Germany  to  advance  through  Belgium  and  violate 

1  Report  of  the  British  Ambassador  in  Berlin  to  Sir  Edward  Grey. 
Despatch  No.   160  of  August  S,  1914. 


ALTRUISM  425 

the  latter's  neutrality,  so  I  would  wish  him  to  understand  that  it 
was,  so  to  speak,  a  matter  of  "life  and  death"  for  the  honour  of 
Great  Britain  that  she  should  keep  her  solemn  engagement  to  do  her 
utmost  to  defend  Belgium's  neutrality  if  attacked. 

The  chancellor  then  asked : 

"But  at  what  price  will  that  compact  have  been  kept ?  Has 
the  British  Government  thought  of  that?" 

Sir  Edward  Goschen's  despatch  then  proceeds:  "I  hinted 
to  his  Excellency  as  plainly  as  I  could  that  fear  of  conse- 
quences could  hardly  be  regarded  as  an  excuse  for  breaking 
solemn  engagements. ' ' 

Every  word  here  which  the  British  ambassador  says  seems 
dictated  by  the  conception  of  duty,  and  every  word  which  the 
German  says,  by  the  conception  of  utility. 

The  German  philosopher  Vorliinder  ^  probably  had  a  pre- 
sentiment that  this  would  be  so,  for  as  long  ago  as  18G1  he 
wrote:  "Those  who  pursue  only  the  divine  ideal  of  human 
nature  without  at  the  same  time  taking  into  account  the  real- 
ity and  truth  of  human  life,  as  we  see  it  in  English  ethics,  lose 
themselves  only  too  easily  in  an  empty,  confused  idealism, 
which  leads  to  no  good  in  life  and  does  not  even  enrich  our 
knowledge.  But  whatever  be  our  views  on  morality,  the  im- 
portant point  for  statesmen,  more  than  for  any  other  human 
beiugs,  is  not  why  they  do  their  duty,  but  that  they  should 
do  it,  as  even  the  'ethical'  Spinoza  said,-  Nee  ad  imperii 
securitatem  refert,  quo  animo  homines  inducantur  ad  res 
publicas  recte  administrandas,  modo  recte  administrentur.'  " 

In  view  of  the  facts,  I  think  that  our  professors  of  philoso- 
phy ought  at  any  rate  to  cease  prostituting  themselves  and 
Kant  and  their  own  nation,  and  should  rather  say  with  Beth- 

1  "Rfditsphilosophie  und  Moral  der  Engliinder  im  17.  und  18  Jahr- 
hundert"  ("The  PhiloBophy  of  Right  and  Morality  of  the  English  in  the 
Seventeenth  and  Eighteenth  Centuries"),  hy  the  nineteenth  century 
German  philosopher  VorlJtnder.  In  the  "Allg.  Monataschrift  fUr  Wis- 
senschaft  und  Literatur,"  p.  356.     Cf.  also  p.  460. 

2  Spino/a,   "Tract    politic,"  cap.   I,   §56. 


426  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

mann-Hollweg,  "Pater,  peccavi."  AVe  have  sinned  against 
the  conception  of  duties  undertaken  by  thinking  altogether  too. 
much  of  our  own  advantage,  albeit,  perhaps,  in  the  circum- 
stances there  was  some  excuse  for  this ;  but  we  hope  to  do  our 
best  to  set  matters  right  again  afterward. 

§  155. — The  Inadequacy  of  Both  Bases  of  Morality 

Whether  we  base  our  love  of  our  neighbors  on  religion  or 
on  egoism,  we  can  certainly  live  quite  morally;  but  then  in 
neither  ease  have  we  anything  really  to  keep  us  from  egoism. 
If  altruism  were  only  a  God-given,  inborn  sentiment,  for  which 
there  is  no  visible  cause,  then  of  course  it  can  extend  only  so 
far  as  this  inborn  sentiment  extends ;  and  if  any  one  in  a  par- 
ticular case  is  inclined  to  be  not  altruistic,  but  too  egoistic,  then 
it  is  useless  to  reason  with  him,  for  there  is  no  modifying  any 
inborn  sentiment.     Neither  philosophy  nor  God  can  change  it. 

But  if  altruism  is  egoism  in  disguise,  then  the  original  ego- 
ism may  of  course  be  entitled,  indeed  must,  to  follow  altruistic 
sentiments  only  so  long  as  it  seems  right  to  the  superordinate 
egoism  so  to  do ;  and  in  each  individual  case  egoism  may  say 
that  altruistic  impulses  are  misplaced.  In  both  cases,  in  short, 
if  any  one  behaves  decently,  this  is  only  because  he  happens  to 
be  well  disposed.  On  the  other  hand,  if  the  other  person  is 
to  have  an  absolute  right  to  proper  treatment,  this  right  must 
be  based  neither  on  a  subjective  feeling,  nor  must  it  be  any- 
thing in  the  nature  of  a  right  voluntarily  conceded,  as  it  were, 
from  motives  of  expediency.  It  must  be  a  right  which  has 
nothing  to  do  with  my  personal  feelings  or  my  own  will. 

So  long  as  morality  is  not  based  on  actual  demonstrable  prin- 
ciples, it  is  simply  something  in  the  air,  and  the  modern  man 
realizes  this  only  too  keenly.  Thus  Drews,^  the  well  known 
German  student  of  the  life  and  teachings  of  Christ,  says  that 
there  is  no  empirical  morality,  and  that  morality  would  be  in 

1  The  modern  German  religious  philosopher  Drews  made  this  state- 
ment in  1910  in  an  address  delivered  in  Berlin.  Whether  this  has  been 
printed  or  not,  I  do  not  know. 


ALTRUISM  427 

any  case  inconceivable  without  God ;  but  that  as  morality  is  a 
necessity,  we  must,  even  against  reason,  hold  fast  the  concep- 
tion of  a  God,  as  if  for  most  human  beings  this  were  such  an 
easy  matter !  And  Karl  Jentsch  ^  actually  makes  the  mon- 
strous assertion  that  "political  economy  exists  for  the  indi- 
vidual human  being."  Even  he  thinks  that  without  belief  in 
God  there  would  be  no  higher  aim  than  the  welfare  of  the 
individual  human  being,  and  as  political  economy  must,  he 
argues,  be  independent  of  belief  in  God,  there  is  no  other 
course  left  but  to  base  it  on  the  individual  human  being. 

Clearly  the  disinclination  to  bring  morality  to  the  plane  of 
this  earth  has  very  unsatisfactory  results.  Instead  of  drawing 
the  only  possible  conclusion  from  the  fact  of  there  being  such 
a  thing  as  political  economy,  something  higher  than  the  wel- 
fare of  the  individual  man  here  below,  Jentsch  would  rather 
deny  the  fact ;  for,  after  all,  it  is  denying  political  economy  to 
assert  that  it  exists  for  the  individual  human  being. 

And  all  this  because  a  morality  brought  down  to  and  applied 
to  this  world  seems  to  him  positively  dreadful!  To  me  it 
seems  that  the  antimonist  trend  given  to  our  ideas,  or,  rather, 
the  regrettable  popularization  of  antimonist  philosophy,  is 
responsible  for  this  moral  laxity,  many  more  instances  of  which 
might  be  given.  It  is  always  imagined  that  if  morality  is 
not  based  on  categorical  imperatives,  then  it  is  not  morality  at 
all,  and  not  worth  discussing. 

Let  us  now  see  whether  it  is  not  possible  to  find  in  nature 
the  conditions  of  an  objective  morality,  one  which  would  have 
the  incalculable  advantage  of  being  independent  of  our  sub- 
jective feelings,  be  they  commendable  or  the  reverse.  This  is 
possible  because  of  the  fact  that  mankind  can  be  proved  to  be 
an  organism. 

i"Zukunft"   ("Future"),  by  the  German  historian  Karl  Jentsch. 


PART  TWO 
HOW  WAR  MAY  BE  ABOLISHED 


CHAPTER  XII 

The  Evolution  op  the  Idea  of  the  World  as  an  Organism 

1. — the  hellenic  period 

§  156. — The  First  Presentiments  of  There  Being  a  Soul  in 
This  World 

If  a  natural  scientist  is  to  be  able  to  describe  any  process 
or  occurrence,  he  must  first  be  able  to  show  how  it  could  come 
about.  He  can  understand  the  secretion  of  bile  only  through 
our  anatomical  knowledge  of  the  liver.  If  we  are  to  under- 
stand psychic  processes,  we  must  have  some  knowledge  of  the 
brain,  and  to  account  for  altruism  in  man  we  should  be  obliged 
to  prove  some  corresponding  organic  basis  for  it.  The  fact  of 
the  existence  of  a  personality  maintained  by  a  homogeneous 
consciousness  explains  egoism,  indeed  in  a  sense  necessitates  it. 
Similarly  the  undeniable  existence  of  altruism  means  that 
there  must  be  some  organic  substratum  on  which  it  is  based, 
and  which  could  consist  only  in  the  fact  of  mankind  as  a  whole 
being  also  a  homogeneous  organism  and  possessing  a  kind  of 
collective  consciousness.  If  this  could  be  proved,  then  we 
should,  at  any  rate,  have  some  foundation  to  go  upon. 

That  mankind  is  not  a  mere  notion,  but  a  solid  fact,  may 
seem  absurd  to  many  persons ;  but  there  is  no  denying  that  the 
noblest  representatives  of  mankind  have  at  all  times  believed  in 
there  being  a  soul  in  this  world.  All  the  higher  religions  may 
ultimately  be  traced  back  to  the  imperative  feeling  that  an 
isolated  human  being  is  not  capable  of  the  highest,  which  he 
can  attain  only  by  means  of  organization.  Man  is  instinc- 
tively felt  to  belong  to  some  larger  association  or  community. 
True,  he  cannot  clearly  grasp  this  fact,  and  he  is  therefore 

431 


432  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

irresistibly  impelled  to  endeavor  to  express  his  vague  divina- 
tion by  the  mystical  word  God. 

Here  we  have  the  moral — that  is,  the  human — foundation  of 
all  religion,  and  not  until  such  a  God  of  man  becomes  deified 
is  there  anything  contrary  to  morality  in  it.  Obviously,  if 
God  no  longer  represents  mankind,  but  is  something  extra- 
human,  so  to  speak,  then  the  individual  man  has  a  God  who  is 
"too  sublime"  for  him,  and  he  acquires  a  right  to  lord  it  over 
everything,  with  an  egoism  knowing  no  bounds.  In  fact,  this 
is  exactly  what  has  come  to  pass  everywhere. 

But  when  attempts  were  made  to  comprehend  this  dimly 
conceived  divinity  by  means  of  the  intellect,  or  at  any  rate  to 
bring  it  into  line  with  the  intellect;  when,  for  instance,  the 
Hellenes  first  began  to  indulge  in  philosophic  speculation,  even 
then  we  find  references  to  this  soul  of  the  world,  as  if  it  were 
something  needing  no  explanation. 

Everything,  in  fact,  which  we  continue  to  say,  with  half- 
melancholy  resignation  about  the  vanished  harmony  of  the 
Greek  conception  of  the  world  may  be  traced  back  to  the  fact 
that  the  divine  idea  of  a  world  one  and  indivisible  still  sur- 
vived in  this  Greek  people,  so  simple,  yet  so  wise.  In  reality, 
the  hylozoism  of  Thales  ^  and  the  other  six  wise  men  of  Greece 
is  nothing  but  the  belief  that  the  whole  world  is  a  single  great 
organism.  Even  for  Heraclitus  '^  everything  had  a  soul  and 
was  full  of  demons ;  even  he  believed  that  everything  had  a 
consciousness  and  did  its  share  of  thinking;  ^  he  believed  there 
to  be  a  universal  "world  fire"  common  to  everything,  which 

1  Aristotle,  "De  Anima,"  I,  2,  says  expressly  of  Thales  that  he  taught 
that  even  stones  had  a  soul.  [Thales  was  the  chief  of  the  seven  wise 
men  of  ancient  Greece,  was  a  native  of  Miletus,  and  flourished  from 
about  600  to  540  B.  c.  In  philosophy  he  sought  for  a  single  element  out 
of  which  the  whole  world  was  formed.  This  he  thought  to  be  moisture. 
— Translator.] 

2  In  Diojienea  Laertes,  L.  9.  7.  [Heraclitus  of  Ephesus  is  said  to 
have  been  the  first  philosopher  to  proclaim  the  absolute  life  of  nature, 
and  the  conception  of  an  unconditional  rational  law  governing  the 
whole  course  of  nature. — Translator.] 

3  Sextus  Empiricus,  ad  math..  VIII  286. 


EVOLUTION  OF  IDEA  OF  ORGANISM         433 

for  him.  also  meant  universal  intelligence,  a  conception  prob- 
ably similar  to  that  of  the  Brahman  of  the  Upanishads.^  All 
the  pre-Socratic  thinkers  held  such  views,  as  did  also  the  whole 
Greek  nation,  which  expressed  its  aspirations  by  creating  for 
itself  the  world  of  Greek  divinities,  the  lost  beautj'  of  which 
has  been  touchingly  lamented  by  Schiller. 

With  Socrates,  to  whom  we  otherwise  owe  much,  first  came 
stnfe  into  the  world.  He  first  began  to  set  man  on  a  pinnacle. 
He  believed  that  man,  owing  to  his  moral  greatness,  could 
be  contrasted  with  the  rest  of  nature.  True,  he  also  ex- 
pounded ethical  doctrines  of  a  wondrous  pathos  which  have 
endured  to  this  day  and  seem  destined  to  endure  for  all  time. 
But  perhaps  precisely  because  of  these  doctrines  and  his  con- 
viction of  their  profound  value,  although  he  could  not  fully 
establish  them,  Socrates  believed  that  ethics  could  not  in  any 
case  be  explained  or  proved,  but  at  best  only  taught.  All 
po.st-Socratic  religion  and  ethics,  in  so  far  as  they  were  dog- 
matic, never  did  more  than  attempt  to  supply  this  lack  of  basis 
or  justification. 

Now,  certainly  no  one  ought  to  think  that  in  Socrates  him- 
self this  great  cleavage  is  always  clearly  perceivable.  In  his 
"Daimonium"  there  still  survives  something  of  that  old  Fate 
which  his  ancestors  had  revered,  that  superhuman  Fate  which 
created  Greek  tragedy,  and  which  even  the  ancient  Teutons 
revered  under  the  form  of  that  sway  of  the  Norns  to  which 
even  gods  must  bow. 

§  157. — The  Post-Socraiics 

All  these  doctrines  and  ideas  are  mystical  symbols  of  the  pro- 
foundly realized  fact  that  the  destiny  of  us  human  beings, 
despite  all  our  self-seeking  and  self-will,  nevertheless  works  out 
in  accordance  with  great  laws,  eternal  and  unbending.  But 
men  then  were  trying  not  merely  to  feel  the  world,  but  also 
to  understand  it,  and  they  found  it  extraordinarily  hard  to 

1  Upanishad,  or  Vedanta,  a  system  of  ancient  Hindu  piiilosophy  which 
t-ndeavors  to  investigate  the  true  nature  of  the  human  soul. — Trans- 
lator. 


434  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

understand  what  had  hitherto  been  simply  felt  and  taken  on 
trust.  Hence  they  thought  they  could  overcome  the  difficulty 
by  coining  the  phrase,  "Man's  freedom  as  a  moral  being  is 
something  outside  the  constraint  to  which  nature  is  subjected. ' ' 
The  glorious  effects,  fraught  with  vast  consequences,  of  man's 
having  thus  insisted  on  his  freedom  must  not  blind  us  to  the 
fact  that  in  so  doing  he  put  himself  so  to  speak  "outside 
nature," 

So  long  as  the  cause  of  this  contrast  between  man  and 
nature  was  not  absolutely  cleared  up,  all  attempts  to  unite  the 
two  inevitably  ended  in  mysticism  or  rationalism.  Such  at- 
tempts continued  until  Kant 's  time,  yet  even  he  did  not  quite 
explain  the  enigma.  He  did,  however,  prepare  the  way  for 
its  solution  by  contrasting  the  opposite  conclusions  reached  by 
considering  matters  from  the  point  of  view  of  pure  reason  and 
of  the  actual  hard  fact.  If  Kant  had  not  at  last  attempted  a 
mystical  or  transcendental  solution  of  the  problem,  the  world 
would  have  probably  perceived  more  clearly  than  it  did  that 
his  point  of  view  was  nearest  the  truth. 

Two  thousand  years  separate  Socrates  from  Kant,  and  all 
this  time  that  superordinate  principle  survived  which  the 
wise  men  of  old  accepted  and  believed  in  as  the  soul  of  the 
world;  but  gradually  it  developed  into  a  conception  of  divin- 
ity removed  from  human  comprehension.  Gradually ^  there- 
fore, the  harmony  of  the  terrestrial  world,  as  taught  by  the 
Pythagoreans,  degenerated  into  a  harmony  of  a  purely  supra- 
sensual  world. 

Even  in  Plato's  writings  the  homogeneousness  of  the  world 
is  generally  represented  only  by  the  demiurgos,^  who  created 
the  world  homogeneous,  and  whose  visible  emanations  are  the 
celestial  bodies.  Man,  on  the  contrary,  is  a  miniature  God 
unto  himself,  an  imitation  or  image  of  the  immortal  gods. 

Even  in  Aristotle  we  get  only  glimpses  of  the  world's  soul 
as  conceived  by  his  predecessors.     For  instance,  he  refers  to  a 

1  Demivrgos  is  the  name  applied  by  Plato  to  the  creator  of  the  uni- 
verse.— Translator. 


EVOLUTION  OF  IDEA  OF  ORGANISM         435 

plant  soul.^  For  him,  as  for  Plato,  even  each  separate  state 
is  a  living  being,  a  zoon,  a  substance  "bearing  in  itself  the 
principle  of  its  motion  and  having  a  tendency  to  change." 
Thus  did  the  state  come  within  the  province  of  natural  science, 
and  become  something  to  be  investigated  by  the  same  methods 
as  all  animate  beings;  that  is,  by  experimental  analysis.- 
Many  other  references  to  some  such  idea  may  be  found.  Thus 
Aristotle  sa3's  that  a  slave  is  an  organ  of  the  family,  "a  part 
of  his  master,  as  it  were,  a  part  of  his  bod}^,  but  with  a  separate 
existence  and  a  soul."  Of  a  popular  assembly  he  says  that 
it  is  a  single  consciousness,  a  single  intelligence.  The  discus- 
sions preceding  a  collective  decision  precisely  resemble  the 
way  in  which  an  individual  man  takes  coun.sel  with  himself, 
except  that  the  collective  person,  having  more  or'gans  at  its 
disposal,  and  wider  and  more  varied  experience,  is  correspond- 
ingly wiser.  Aristotle  also  expressly  states  that  whether  the 
different  parts  of  an  organization  are  in  contact  with  one  an- 
other or  not  is  comparatively  immaterial ;  for  the  real  basis  of 
the  organization  is  rather  the  mutual  relationships  of  life. 

Similarly  many  hints  occur  in  Aristotle  that  groups  of 
human  beings  are  to  be  considered  as  organisms,  but  the  broad 
general  idea  of  humanity  was  then  waxing  dim,  and  he  says 
nothing  about  a  collective  soul  of  the  world.  This  conception, 
indeed,  survived  in  a  far  more  definite  form  among  the  Stoics, 
whose  "pneuma" — a  something  which  can  move  of  itself  and 
think  for  itself — embraces  the  entire  world,  and  is  therefore 
merely  the  old  hyolozoist  soul  of  the  world,  only  more  vigor- 
ously conceived.  The  Stoics  were  afterward  joined  by  Plo- 
tinus  ^  who  insists  on  the  homogeneity  of  individual  souls ;  by 

1  Aristotle,  "De  Anima,"  II,  2,  413. 

^Idem,  I,  113. 

3  Plotinua,  founder  of  the  Xeo-Platonic  system  of  philosopliy.  He 
held  that  the  soul  is  the  one  source  of  knowledge,  that  the  Deity  can 
be  gasped  by  intuition  only;  that  after  the  Deity,  tlie  productive  of 
all  existence,  comes  the  universal  soul  or  spirit;  and  out  of  the  spirit 
is  developed  the  soul.  Kingsley's  "Hypatia"  givea  some  idea  of  Plo- 
tinus's  philosophy. — Translator. 


436  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

the  Mauicheaus/  the  Christians,  aud,  above  all,  by  Origeu. 

2. — THE   CHRISTIAN    ERA 

§  158. — The  Scholastic  Victory  Over  Primitive  Christendom 

The  Christians  believed  in  the  pneiima  hagiori,  in  a  sacred, 
vivifying,  inspiring  force,  uniting  together  every  individual 
soul.'*  This  pneuma  hagion  was  the  world  soul,  but  a  body 
was  likewise  attributed  to  this  world.     Thus  St.  Paul  says : 

' '  For  as  we  have  many  members  in  one  body,  and  all  mem- 
bers have  not  the  same  office : 

"So  we,  heing  many,  are  one  body  in  Christ,  and  every  one 
members  one  of  another. ' '  ^ 

This  last  sentence  is  perhaps  the  best  and  assuredly  the 
most  searching  definition  ever  given  of  an  organism  and  the 
mutual  relations  of  its  parts  or  members  one  with  another. 

In  amazement  we  might  well  ask  ourselves  how  the  plain 
men  who  wrote  the  sacred  Scriptures  attained  to  such  wisdom. 
They  probably  knew  nothing  of  the  conception  of  an  organism, 
nor  even  of  human  society.  And  yet  they  could  define  both 
with  the  utmost  clarity !  But  how  did  they  do  so  ?  This  ap- 
parent marvel  can  be  understood  only  if  we  take  the  fact 
which  we  would  fain  prove  as  being  already  proved,  "Uni- 
versal human  love  is  the  feeling  which  testifies  to  the  liealth  of 
the  universal  human  organism."  Both  these  things  are  in- 
separably bound  up  with  each  other,  and  primitive  Christian- 
ity was  so  profoundly  penetrated  with  charity,  or  man's  love 

1  Maniclieiam,  whose  originator  was  Mani,  born  in  Babylon  about  a.  d. 
216,  and  put  to  death  by  crucifixion  and  Haying,  taught  that  the  spirits 
of  light  send  a  succession  of  prophets  to  earth — Noah,  Abraham, 
Zoroaster,  Buddha,  and  Jesus  patibilis,  who  is  a  pure  spirit,  and  his 
body  merely  a  phantom.  Mani  himself  claimed  to  be  the  last  such 
prophet,  destined  to  carry  on  the  work  of  Christ  and  Paul — the  separa- 
tion of  light  from  darkness. — Translator. 

2  Cf .  p.  451  et  seq.,  concerning  the  conception  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 

3  Romans  XII,  4  and  5.  This  conception  developed  in  process  of  time 
into  the  purely  dogmatic  and  in  reality  quite  Incomprehensible  modern 
conception  of  the  "Holy  Ghost." 


EVOLUTION  OF  IDEA  OF  ORGANISM         437 

of  his  fellow-man,  that  this  sacred  love  was  the  source  whence 
it  derived  the  strength  intuitively  to  perceive  the  practical 
effect  of  such  love.  Without  laying  too  great  stress  on  intui- 
tive perceptions  of  truth,  we  may  yet  say  that  every  one  who 
believes  in  the  power  of  the  soul  to  elicit  the  truth  should  in- 
scribe in  letters  of  gold  these  verses  from  the  Epistle  to  the 
Romans. 

The  close  and  obviously  inevitable  connection  of  this  Pauline 
precept  with  the  conception  of  universal  human  love  is  also 
clear  from  the  fact  that  even  Seneca,^  who  in  this  respect 
thought  absolutely  as  a  Christian,  agrees  with  St.  Paul  in  con- 
sidering individual  human  beings  as  members  of  one  great 
superordinate  living  body. 

Christianity,  therefore,  seemed  destined  to  make  widely 
known  the  ancient  Hellenic  idea  of  harmony  in  the  world,  and 
in  the  first  centuries  after  Christ  even  the  millenarians  hoped 
that,  at  any  rate  at  some  future  time,  the  kingdom  of  God 
would  prevail  on  earth.  TertuUian  in  particular  did  so ;  and 
even  Origen,  who  disagreed  with  the  millenarians  in  this  re- 
spect, holds  similar  views ;  for  he  expressl}^  states  that  -  ' '  The 
whole  world  is  like  a  great  animal  animated  by  one  soul  and 
one  only. ' '  Herein  he  shows  his  affinities  with  St.  Paul,  at  the 
same  time  laying  down  that  principle  which  the  writer  would 
fain  have  seen  recognized.  This  principle  can  be  expressed  in 
up-to-date  language  as  follows:  the  cells  in  an  animal,  taken 
together,  form  a  single  large  organism.  Similarly  all  isolated 
individuals  taken  together  form  a  superordinate  organism,  a 
statement  which  is  to  be  understood  quite  literally,  and  not 
metaphorically. 

In  the  interval,  however,  the  world  came  under  the  influence 
of  the  Christian  scliolastics,  and  for  centuries  this  conception 
survived  merely  as  a  symbol,  overgrown  and  hidden  by  tran- 

1  "Omne  hoc  quod  vides,  quo  divina  atqiie  liumana  conclusa  sunt, 
iimira  est:   meniliia  sumus  oorporia  mafjni."     Seneca,  Letter  95. 

-Origen,  "I)e  Prineip.,  1,  1,  3,  saya:  ''I'Virersurn  niundvvi  velut  ani- 
mal quuddam  immensam  atque  opiniandmn  puto,  quod  quasi  ah  una 
anima  virtute  del  ac  ratione  teneatur." 


438  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

scendental  Christian  mysticism.  Even  Augustine  ^  trans- 
formed an  idea,  which  after  all  is  based  only  on  natural  sci- 
ence, into  something  purely  spiritual  and  religious.  This 
great  father  of  the  church  was  unfortunately  succeeded  by  the 
entirely  Christian  philosophers  of  the  Middle  Ages,  of  whom 
Abelard  may  be  specially  mentioned.  Thomas  -  alone  is  a 
notable  exception.  These  philosophers  sj^stematically  ignored 
the  clear  definitions  of  Aristotle,  whom  otherwise  they  es- 
teemed highl}'',  as  was  always  the  case  with  those  who  could 
not  apply  his  teachings.  Human  society  w-as  stated  not  to  be 
a  natural,  but  only  an  artificial,  mechanism,  possibly  a  creation 
of  the  devil.  With  it  was  contrasted,  as  being  a  true  organ- 
ism, the  heavenly  kingdom  of  God,  and  here  again  that  actual 
kingdom  of  which  men  dreamed  created  a  confusion  in  their 
conceptions  of  life. 

§  159. — Renaissance  and  Reaction 

Thus  matters  remained  until  the  natural  philosophers  of  the 
Renaissance  once  more  reverted  to  the  pan-psychic  ideas  of 
Grecian  mythology.  Then,  when  the  world  seemed  wholly 
given  over  to  killing  and  fighting,  the  best  mortals,  who  rightly 
called  themselves  humanists,  once  again  became  aware  of  a 
longing  for  humane  ways  and  ideas.  They  remembered  Greek 
harmony  and  unity,  or,  as  they  occasionally  called  it,  equality. 
From  the  teachings  of  the  church  they  selected  the  fraternity 
of  the  early  Christians,  and  they  even  had  an  inkling  of  the 
liberty  which  knowledge  was  one  day  to  confer  on  them. 

Since  then  liberty,  equalit}'-,  and  fraternity  have  unmistak- 
ably progressed.  True,  the  mass  of  mankind  have  neither 
Greek,  Christian,  nor  scientific  leanings,  and  consequently  are 
not  humane  either.  They  oppress  their  inferiors  and  bow 
down  to  their  superiors ;  and  as  regards  the  human  race,  it  is 
just  the  same.  They  imagine  that  a  God  rules  over  them  and 
that  the  animal  kingdom  is  subject  to  them. 

1  St.  Augustine  in  his  "De  Civitate  dei  libris,  XXII,"  XIV,  28. 

2  Thomas,  "De  regim.  print."  I,  1. 


EVOLUTION  OF  IDEA  OF  ORGANISM         439 

Since  the  Renaissance,  however,  man  has  begun  to  feel  that 
there  exists  an  inward  link  between  himself  and  nature;  and 
when  Leibnitz  died  some  notion  of  man's  resemblance  both  to 
God  and  beast  had  already  filtered  through  even  to  the  darkest 
regions  of  Europe.  This  trend  of  thought  it  was  which  was 
destined  to  be  decisive  in  the  future,  but  as  yet  such  ideas  did 
not  generally  prevail.  The  potentates  of  those  days  were  still 
equally  alarmed  at  the  notion  of  man  resembling  God  and  at 
that  of  his  resembling  the  beasts  of  the  field;  and  although 
these  heretical  views  first  made  their  appearance  decently  in 
the  garb  of  orthodox  Christianity,  yet  the  church  was  astute 
enough  to  perceive  the  young  swan  in  the  duck's  egg  almost 
before  it  was  hatched. 

^Ye  need  not  here  discuss  what  was  done  with  God.  He  be- 
came more  and  more  fined  down  and  exclusive,  with  less  and 
less  of  the  human  about  Him,  until  at  length,  in  1854,  the 
dogma  was  put  forth  that  the  birth  even  of  the  mother  of  God 
was  stainless.  Similarly  animals  were  represented  as  having 
no  resemblance  to  human  beings,  a  school  of  thought  of  which 
Descartes,  who  said  they  were  machines,  is  a  typical  instance. 
St.  Francis  of  Assisi  was  not  exactly  placed  on  the  index,  but 
the  sense  of  his  poems  to  Brother  "Wolf  and  Brother  Sun  was 
scouted.  After  all,  that  period  w^as  beginning  in  which  the 
church  helped  to  erect  barriers  between  different  categories  of 
human  beings.  How,  therefore,  was  it  to  recognize  our 
brothers  in  trees  and  shrubs  or  in  air  and  water? 

Thus  began  a  time  w^hen  the  natural  man,  and  with  him 
natural  society,  was  once  more  combated  as  in  the  darkest 
period  of  the  ^Middle  Ages,  onl.y  more  systematically  and  more 
strictly  in  accordance  with  dogmatic  principles.  There  was 
even  opposition  to  those  who  from  purely  religious  sentiment 
would  fain  have  been  brothers  in  Christ  or  in  nature.  Yet 
such  men  were  many — a  whole  series  of  them,  indeed,  from 
St.  Francis  of  Assisi  to  Angelus  Silesius  ^  and  from  Christian 

1  Johannes  Anjrelus  Silesius,  whose  real  name  was  Johann  Scheffler, 
was  induced  by  the  writings  of  Bohme  and  other  mystics  to  join  the 


440  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

to  Goethe.  The  conception  of  mankind  as  an  organism  seemed 
forgotten. 

The  seventeenth  century  had  still  not  shaken  off  these  in- 
fluences, when  men  were  continually  endeavoring  to  prove  that 
although  man  had  natural  qualities,  he  had  also  purely  spirit- 
ual gifts,  which  put  him  on  a  plane  above  nature.  Thus 
Hobbes,^  in  his  *' Leviathan,"  expressly  states  that  natural 
animal  societies,  such  as  the  communities  in  which  bees,  ants, 
beavers,  and  other  creatures  live,  have  nothing  in  common 
with  human  society,  which  is  based  on  human  intelligence. 
Spinoza,"  indeed,  as  is  well  known,  believed  the  whole  world 
to  have  a  soul,  "quamvis  diversis  gradibus  animaia" ;  and 
elsewhere  he  says  that  whenever  a  large  number  of  human 
beings  act  in  virtue  of  a  right  that  they  all  have  in  common, 
it  seems  as  if  they  all  had  a  soul  in  common.  Thus  he  reverts 
to  Aristotle's  views ;  but  the  '"soul  of  a  state"  is  to  him  merely 
a  creation  of  the  human  mind  and  its  conscious  reflection,  not 
the  other  way  about. 

The  reversion  to  Grecian  harmony  would  have  been  easiest 
for  Leibnitz,  for  according  to  his  theory  each  individual  body 
consists  of  an  unlimited  number  of  separate  monads.  Conse- 
quently, nothing  would  have  been  simpler  than  to  apply  to 
society  this  conception  of  individuals  separated  by  space,  but 
yet  forming  a  unit.  Leibnitz  says  somewhere  that  every  plant 
and  every  animal  may  be  considered  in  the  light  of  a  large 
garden  full  of  flowers  or  a  pond  full  of  fish.  But  every  branch 
of  a  plant  and  every  limb  of  an  animal,  indeed  every  drop  of 
its  secretions,  can  also  be  considered  in  the  light  of  such  a 
garden  or  such  a  pond.  Yet,  so  far  as  I  am  aware,  Leibnitz 
never  directly  hints  that  he  looks  upon  the  world  as  an  organ- 
Roman  Catholic  Church.  His  mysticism  has  much  in  common  with 
Schopenhauer's  philosophy. 

1  Hobbes'  "Leviathan,"  1650.  Published  in  German  in  1794.  p  165 
(of  German  edition).  Similar  views  were  hold  by  Bossuet,  for  in- 
stance {de  la  connaissance  de  Dieu  et  de  soi-meme,"  IV,  11),  Locke, 
and  others. 

2  Spinoza's  "Ethics,"  II,  prop.  XIII,  dealing  with  politics. 


EVOLUTION  OF  IDEA  OF  ORGANISM         441 

ism,  perhaps  because  he  saw  no  necessity  to  express  in  words 
what  he  undoubtedly  thought  quite  obvious.  Leibnitz  was  a 
thorough  cosmopolitan  not  only  because,  owing  to  his  prin- 
ciples, he  could  hardly  be  otherwise,  but  for  other  reasons  also. 
Born  in  Leipsic,  he  wrote  in  French,  and  his  "Monadology" 
is  an  attempt  to  combine  "English  and  French  philosophy." 
His  correspondence  shows  him  to  have  been  the  trusted  friend 
of  persons  of  all  nationalities,  and  indeed  his  greatness  con- 
sists partly,  at  all  events,  in  his  having  been  truly  a  man  at 
home  in  many  lands.  It  would  certainly  never  have  even 
occurred  to  him  that  a  thinking  being,  least  of  all  any  one 
styling  himself  a  philosopher,  could  take  sides  in  the  War  of 
the  Spanish  Succession,  in  which  his  various  home-lands  were 
involved.  Leibnitz,  indeed,  did  not  see  danger  in  men  being 
biased  in  favor  of  one  particular  laud,  and  therefore  did  noth- 
ing to  prevent  being  so.  In  short,  he  overestimated  men's 
intellects,  even  as,  a  hundred  years  later,  Bonaparte  overesti- 
mated nations. 

Thus  matters  went  on  for  a  long  time,  and  even  Rousseau 
based  his  "reversion  to  nature"  on  no  considerations  of  nat- 
ural science  or  even  of  nature.  To  him  the  word  nature,  in 
conformity  with  which  he  wanted  his  society  to  be  ordered,  was 
still  altogether  an  idea  in  the  Platonic  sense.  This  idea  Rous- 
seau modified  very  much  as  it  suited  him  to  do.  Whereas,  in 
reality  nature  is  everywhere  bound  by  her  own  laws,  for  him 
nature  is  merely  a  symbol  of  liberty. 

3. — THE   MODERN    PERIOD 

160. — Its  Forerunners 

Yet  the  belief  persisted  that  this  world  here  below^  is  in  a 
certain  sense  an  organism  complete  in  itself  and  by  itself ;  and, 
despite  the  church  and  its  quest  of  heavenly  bliss,  the  torch  of 
knowledge  was  passed  from  one  to  another,  and  the  smoldering 
spark  thus  kept  alive.  The  history  of  the  idea  of  the  world 
as  an  organism,  and  how  it  arose,  would  be  undoubtedly  one 


442  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

of  rare  fascination  to  write;  but  here  it  can  be  given  only  in 
broadest  outline. 

About  the  year  1500  Nicolas  Leon  Thomaeus  ^  was  already 
insisting  that  there  must  be  some  link  between  individual 
human  beings,  which  he  used  as  an  argument  for  the  possibility 
of  second  sight  and  "natural  prophecy."  About  1550  Car- 
danus  -  ascribed  to  the  world  a  real  life  of  its  own  {propriam 
et  vcram  vitam)  ;  in  1581  Giordano  Bruno  ^  wrote  of  natura 
naturans,  and  Paracelsus^  the  great  regenerator's  ^^Consen- 
sus" and  Patritius's  "Panpsychia"  °  are  all  merely  different 
w'aj's  of  expressing  their  common  belief  in  the  world  being  an 
organism. 

These  few  instances,  however,  can  scarcely  afford  any  idea 
of  how  prevalent  throughout  the  sixteenth  century  was  the 
idea  of  the  world  as  an  organism ;  and  to  cite  further  instances 
would  take  me  too  far.  I  shall  confine  myself,  therefore,  to 
quoting  the  words  of  Rixner  and  Siber,"  who  have  devoted  a 
bulky  volume  to  nothing  but  the  opinions  of  these  courageous 
"innovators"  in  the  domain  of  natural  science.  The  con- 
clusion to  which  they  come  is  that,  however  widely  different 
may  be  the  views,  characteristics,  knowledge,  education,  and 
mode  of  life  of  the  sixteenth  century  scientists  and  thinkers, 
they  all  agreed  in  considering  nature  as  a  living  thing.     All 

1  Thomseus,  quoted  from  Rixner. 

2  Cardanus's  "De  subtilitate  reriim,"  1550  V.  opp.  III.  374  and  439, 
and  X\1II,  p.  491  ed.  1(563,  "ittramqiie  esse  in  rebus  veramque  eariim 
constitiiere  eitam.'" 

3  Giordano  Bruno.  Extract  from  his  works  bv  F.  H.  Jacob,  1780,  p. 
263. 

4  Paracelsus,  "Archido,"  Vol.  I.  According  to  Paracelsus,  a  Swiss 
physician  and  naturalist,  human  beings  take  part  in  tlie  universal  life 
by  means  of  their  sidereal  or  astral  body. 

5  Patritius,  "Nova  de  universis  Philosophia."  Ferrara,  IV,  54,  and 
V,  58. 

6  Thaddeus  A.  Rixner  and  Siber's  "Leben  und  Lehrmeinungen  be- 
riihmter  Physiker  am  Ende  des  XVI.  und  am  Anfang  des  XVII  Jahr- 
hunderts.  Heft:  Paracelsus  XV."  ("Life  and  Doctrines  of  Famous 
Physicists  at  the  Close  of  the  Sixteenth  and  Beginning  of  the  Seven- 
teenth Centuries.") 


EVOLUTION  OF  IDEA  OF  ORGANISM         443 

nature  was  to  them  a  universal  organism,  instinct  with  joyous 
life  in  all  its  component  parts.  The  principal  philosophers 
quoted  are  Theophrastus  Paracelsus,  Hieronymus  Cardanus, 
Bernhardinus  Telesius,  Franciscus  Patritius,  Jordanus 
Brunus,  Thomas  Campanella,  and  Johann  Baptist  van  Hel- 
mont. 

In  the  seventeenth  century  these  ideas  were  more  clearly 
formulated.  Suarez,^  for  instance,  says  that  the  individual  is 
only  a  partial  manifestation  of  the  genus ;  Francis  Bacon  -  as- 
serts that  there  is  sensibility  everywhere ;  and  Campanella  ^ 
does  likewise ;  while  Fielnus  *  proves  that  civilization  is  ever- 
living  and  immortal,  whence  he  concludes  that  the  world  must 
have  an  immortal  soul.  Even  Pascal  ^  warns  us  against  insist- 
ing too  much  on  the  difference  between  man  and  animals,  alleg- 
ing that  this  makes  us  overbearing;  and  in  a  famous  passage 
he  expressly  compares  mankind  to  an  individual  person ;  while 
Newton,*^  who  actually  compiled  laws  of  the  world  as  an  organ- 
ism and  who  was  very  much  disposed  to  favor  such  ideas  in 
general,  once,  for  purely  physical  reasons,  refers  to  the  earth 
as  a  "lazy  animal." 

1  "Metaphysic.  disputat.,"  by  the  Spanish  Jesuit  theologian  Francisco 
Suarez. 

12  "Ubique  est  perceptio,"  in  Bacon's  "De  dignitate,"  IV.,  3,   1G25. 

3  "Omnem  naturam  sentire  atlirmandiim  est,"  in  Campanella's  "De 
sensu  reium,"  I,  i,  IS. 

4"Theologia  Platonica,"  Book  XVITI,  by  ^larsiliiis  Ficiniis  (or  Mar- 
silio  Ficino,  as  he  is  more  often  Icuown  in  English,  the  Italian  physician 
and  Platonic  philosopher,  born  Florence,  1433,  died  1499.  His  book 
referred  to  was  published  in  1482,  and  intended  to  show  Platonism  to 
be  the  essence  of  Christian  belief. — Translator). 

5  Pascal,  "Pensees  sur  la  religion." 

6  Sir  Isaac  Newton's  "Philosophiae  natiiralis  principia  mathematica," 
published  1G87.  Even  the  attractive  principle,  in  Newton's  writings, 
and  still  more  in  those  of  his  disciples  Muschenbroek,  for  instance,  has 
a  strong  tendency  toward  animism,  and  describes  the  attractive  prin- 
ciple as  "amitia"  (friendship).  Lichtenberg  says  quite  plainly  that 
gravitation  is  tiie  longing  of  the  heavenly  bodies  for  one  another.  Cf. 
further  the  phrase  "living  force"  or  ins  viva,  which,  I  believe,  was  first 
used  by  Leibnitz. 


444  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

Early  iu  tlie  following  century  Shaftesbury  ^  went  the 
length  of  saying  that  however  perfect  an  organism  (system) 
an  individual  human  being  may  be,  yet  in  order  to  see  real 
perfection  he  must  be  placed  in  relation  to  the  organism  of  his 
race.  On  the  whole,  however,  the  rationalistic  eighteenth  cen- 
tury was  less  favorable  to  speculations  of  this  kind,  which,  in 
the  state  of  learning  at  that  time,  could  not  but  be  slightly 
tinctured  with  mysticism.  This  somewhat  sentimental  point 
of  view  is  found  even  in  Fechner,-  who  not  only  believed  in  a 
humanity  being  an  organism,  but  who  looked  on  all  the  stars 
and  solar  systems  as  living  beings.  Dreamy  speculations  such 
as  these,  however,  have  done  more  harm  than  good.  Poets,  it 
was  thought,  had  a  right  to  endow  everything  about  them  with 
a  soul,  but  thinkers  ought  to  leave  such  matters  alone.^  In 
modern  times  men  came  to  realize  the  value  of  empirical  in- 
vestigations, for  the  time  had  more  or  less  gone  by  for  philo- 
sophical speculations,  and  men  were  beginning  to  look  out  for 
facts  pointing  to  the  necessity  for  there  being  some  link  be- 
tween one  human  being  and  another,  and  to  the  existence  of  a 
great  human  organism. 

It  is  well  known  that  the  "suitability  and  wisdom  of  the 
institutions  of  nature"  had  always  been  instanced  as  arguing 
the  presence  of  a  supreme  being,  who,  however,  was  usually 
thought  of  as  God  only.  Even  Parker,*  for  instance,  thought 
it  needful,  because  of  the  reason  and  purpose  which  he  every- 
where perceived  in  nature,  to  infer  the  presence  of  a  God. 
Ralph  C'udworth,^  also,  while  remarking  that  the  constant 
maintenance  of  a  proper  equilibrium  between  births  and 
deaths  in  the  matter  of  numbers  and  differences  of  sex  pointed 

1  "'Moralists"  II,  4,  l)y  the  third  Earl  of  Shafteshury.  Translated 
into  German  apparently  in   1910. 

2  "Zendavetita,"  S.  \'I,  by  Gustav  Theodor  Fer-hner,  piil).  IS-il.  Cf. 
aUo  "Tagesansieht,"  p.  29. 

3 ''Zur  Einfiihrung  in  die  Philosopliie  der  Gegenwart"  C'lntroduction 
to  the  Philosophy  of  the  Present  day"),  by  Alois  Riehl,  p.  161,  pub- 
lished in   1903. 

4  Parker,  "Dispiitatio  de  Deo,"  p.   114. 

ii 'The  True  Intellectual  System  of  the  Universe,"  by  Ralph  Cudworth. 


EVOLUTION  OF  IDEA  OF  ORGANISM         445 

to  the  existence  of  a  supreme  wisdom,  gniiding  the  apparently 
fortuitous  course  of  this  world,  saw  nothing  but  God  in  this 
wisdom. 

§  161. — Modern  Empiricism 

Empirical  facts,  however,  accumulate  as  time  goes  on,  and 
Kant  took  advantage  of  this.^  But  he  ceased  to  have  anything 
to  do  with  a  deus  ex  machind,  thereby  being  probably  again  the 
first  to  enter  upon  the  way  which  leads  to  modern  science.  He 
took  as  his  starting-point  the  contradiction  between  man 's  fet- 
ters and  the  freedom  of  which  he  dreams,  and  asserted  from 
the  outset  that  the  organic  laws  of  mankind  clearly  limit  free- 
dom. Human  actions,  like  everything  else  in  nature,  are 
determined  by  natural  laws.  At  first  sight,  for  instance,  it 
seems  that  marriages  and  consequently  births  and  deaths 
could  not  be  subject  to  any  rule,  because  they  are  so  greatly 
dependent  on  man's  free  will.  Yet  statistics  in  large  coun- 
tries prove  that  they,  too,  are  under  the  influence  of  fixed  nat- 
ural laws.  Kant  compared  this  unvarying  regularity,  which 
is  independent  of  man's  will,  with  the  weather,  which  is  so 
uncertain  that  no  one  can  arrange  it  beforehand,  but  yet  in  the 
main  it  is  so  certain  that  tlie  growth  of  phtnts,  the  course  of 
streams,  and  other  natural  phenomena  always  go  on  in  the 
same  way  without  interi'nption. 

CMimate,  however,  can  be  explained  by  the  laws  which  govern 
the  earth  considered  as  a  homogeneous  heavenly  body;  and 
similarly  these  laws  of  humanity,  in  themselves  inexplicable, 
can  be  explained  by  considering  humanity  as  an  organism. 
Kant,  it  is  true,  had  no  idea  of  any  such  explanation.  He 
says  that  individual  human  beings  and  even  whole  nations 
persist  in  thinking  that,  by  each  pursuing  his  or  its  own  ends 
each  in  his  or  its  own  way,  and  often  pulling  ditTerent  ways, 
they  are  tending  insensibly  to  fulfil  nature's  ends,  despite  the 

1  "Tdoe  '/u  eincr  all.i,'('meinen  CJcscliifhte  in  \veltl)iirgerl idler  Absicht" 
("A  Forwast  of  a  HiHtory  of  tlie  World  from  tiie  Point  of  \'iew  of  a 
Citi/en  of  tlic  World")     b^-  Kant, 


446  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

fact  that  nature's  ends  are  unknown  to  them.  They  persist- 
ently believe  that  nature's  ends  are  their  guiding  principle, 
and  that  they  are  helping  to  further  these  ends.  Yet  even  if 
they  did  know  what  nature's  ends  are,  they  would  trouble  but 
little  about  them.  Kant  also  recognizes  that  the  actions  of 
individual  human  beings  cannot  be  wholly  explained  by  their 
individual  characteristics,  but  he  does  not  say  what  would 
explain  them.  As  is  so  often  the  case  with  Kant,  however,  two 
frankly  admitted  contrasts  are  clearly  stated,  and  thus  further 
scientific  investigatiou  is  simplified.  All  that  was  now  re- 
quired was,  if  possible,  not  merely  to  represent  the  divergence 
between  restrictions  collectively  imposed  and  personal  liberty 
as  a  virtually  insoluble  problem,  but  to  bridge  the  gulf  be- 
tween the  two.^ 

1  Here  I  would  request  the  reader  to  re-read  tlie  paragraph  concerning 
freedom  and  natural  compulsion,  in  which  it  is  shown  how  this  can  be 
done  by  the  fact  of  the  brain  having  been  actually  freed  from  the 
body.  I  now  purpose  to  prove  that  the  freedom  thus  acquired  is  again 
restricted  by  the  long-suspected  fact,  which  natural  scientists  did  not 
clearly  recognize  till  the  last  century,  that  mankind  as  a  whole  forma 
an  organism  in  the  strictest  sense  of  the  word. 


CHAPTER  XII 

The  World  as  an  Organism 

1. — the  physical  reasons  for  mankind  forming  an  organism 

§  162. — Hypotheses  and  Facts 

If  anything  in  this  world  is  not  instantly  traceable  to  facts, 
recourse  is  had  to  a  hypothesis.  For  example,  when  it  is  found 
impossible  to  explain  certain  phenomena  in  connection  with 
light,  we  postulate  an  ether,  or  small  particles  moving  with 
extraordinary  speed,  or  something  of  the  kind.  Such  a  hy- 
pothesis is  all  tlie  more  generally  accepted,  the  greater  the 
number  of  demonstrable  facts  which  can  be  explained  by  it; 
but  if  a  fact  is  found  which  conflicts  with  such  a  hypothesis, 
then  the  latter  must  of  course  be  dropped. 

Thus  the  theory  of  the  emission  of  light  was  overthrown 
when  the  phenomena  of  polarization  could  no  longer  be  recon- 
ciled with  it ;  and  at  present  the  theory  of  undulation  is  being 
questioned  because  certain  electric  phenomena,  undoubtedly 
connected  with  light,  conflict  with  it.  Every  theory,  there- 
fore, remains  uncertain  until  the  phenomenon  on  which  it  is 
based  can  be  directly  observed.  Could  we  succeed  in  proving 
the  existence  of  actual  light  particles  or  of  ether,  this  would 
be  a  much  more  direct  proof  than  any  theory  deduced  there- 
from. 

Similarly  with  regard  to  the  theory  of  mankind  being  an 
organism.  Even  if  there  is  much  in  the  life  of  man  and  na- 
tions to  indicate  that  there  must  be  some  connecting-link  be- 
tween individual  human  beings,  and  the  number  and  varied 
nature  of  the  relations  between  man  and  man  make  it  probable 
that  there  is  some  such  organism,  nevertheless,  the  smallest 

447 


448  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

direct  proof  would  be  perhaps  not  actually  more  important, 
but  more  decisive  from  the  point  of  view  of  science. 

Modem  men,  indeed,  although  most  of  them  would  deny  this, 
are  mostly  infected  with  the  belief  that  all  solid  fact  must  be 
material.  The  proof  of  dynamic  effects  between  human  be- 
ings— effects  which  Aristotle  thought  sufficient  and  which  in 
fact  still  are  sufficient,  to  prove  that  mankind  must  be  consid- 
ered as  an  organism — seems  to  us  almost  immaterial,  and  we 
noisily  insist  on  the  proof  of  an  actual  physical  connection. 
Every  reader  will  here  derisively  object  that  mankind  as  a 
whole  surely  cannot  be  compared  with  a  single  animal.  Be- 
tween the  tip  of  an  animal's  nose  and  the  tip  of  its  tail  there 
certainly  exists  a  vital  physical  connection,  but  what  connec- 
tion is  there  between  a  European  and  a  Tierra  del  Fuegian, 
between  Kant  and  Eucken,  between  Frederick  II  and  William 
II,  between  the  man  in  the  trenches  and  Hindenburg,  or  be- 
tween Hindenburg  and  Joffre? 

Now,  although  it  would  not  be  absolutely  necessary  to  prove 
that  a  bridge  of  some  actual  substance  exists  between  all  these 
individual  persons,  for  the  dynamically  living  bridge  would 
suffice,  yet  in  conformity  with  the  materialistic  requirements 
of  the  present  day,  it  must  first  be  shown  that  there  does  actu- 
ally exist  a  uniform  continuously  living  connection  vs-hich  has 
always  subsisted,  between  all  human  beings  in  all  ages  and  all 
lands,  and  that,  moreover,  it  is  actually  in  operation. 

Not  till  this  has  been  done  can  the  connections  between  the 
A'arious  forces  be  investigated,  wliich,  resting  on  this  substan- 
tial basis,  make  mankind  into  an  organism  which  can  be  taken 
into  practical  consideration.  Unlike  the  substantial  basis, 
which  remains  almost  unchanged,  these  connections  between 
forces  develop  as  time  goes  on,  and  every  day  make  the  human 
organism  more  of  a  unity  and  of  more  importance. 

§  163. — The  Continuity  of  Germ-Plasm 

The  continuity  of  germ-plasm  points  to  some  such  physical 
link  between  one  human  being  and  another.     As  long  ago  as 


THE  WORLD  AS  AN  ORGANISM  449 

1878  Jager  ^  advocated  this  idea,  and  two  years  later  Nuss- 
baum  2  did  likewise.  It  did  not  become  generally  known,  how- 
ever, until  Weissmann  ^  made  his  comprehensive  investigations 
of  Hydromedusce.  This  doctrine  of  Weissmann 's  is  now  so 
thoroughly  admitted  everywhere  that  Delage  and  (joldsmith  * 
speak  of  the  "difference  between  soma  and  germ-pla.sm"  as  a 
fact  of  common  knowledge.  They  explain  that  soma  dies  with 
the  individual,  whereas  germ-plasm  lives  on  in  posterity,  and 
is  thus  "immortal  and  continuous."  Hypothesis  does  not 
come  in,  they  say,  except  in  the  particular  deductions  made 
by  AVeissmann  from  this  fact — deductions  which  do  not  con- 
cern us.  What  does  concern  us  is  the  ' '  fact  of  common  knowl- 
edge," which  can  be  easily  understood  by  means  of  the  ac- 
companying diagram. 

Every  egg-cell  (thus  Cell  A  in  Fig.  9),  out  of  which  an 
animal  or  human  being  is  afterward  developed,  first  splits  up 
once  into  two  parts,  of  which  one,  the  dark  half,  grows  rapidly, 
forms  the  entire  body,  dies  with  that  body,  and  disappears 
with  it.  This  is  indicated  by  the  arrow  turned  toward  space. 
The  other  light-colored  half  of  the  cell,  however,  does  not 
grow,  but  remains  living  germ-plasm,  merely  arranging  itself 
differently,  and  converting  itself  into  seed-cells  or  egg-cells. 
In  Cells  Bl  and  B2  in  the  diagram  this  process  is  indicated  by 
the  uninterruptedly  light  coloring  of  the  germ-plasm.  The 
seed-cells  or  egg-cells  which  subsist  in  the  testicles  or  ovaries 
of  a  human  being  are  therefore  not  merely  symbolically,  but 

1  .Taper's  "I>ehrbuch  der  alljiemeiueu  Zoologie"  ("Handbook  of  Uni- 
Tersal  Zoology"),  1878:     Leipsio. 

2  "Die  DilVercn/.icnnig  dca  (icbilileclils  im  Tierreich"  ("The  Differ- 
entiation of  fSex  in  the  Animal  Kinydom"),  by  M.  Nussbaum  (1880). 
In  the  "Archives  for  Microscopical  Anatomy,''  XV'III. 

3  "'Die  Entstclunij;  der  Sexual/elleu  bci  den  Hydromedusen"  ("The 
Origin  of  sexual  cells  in  the  Hydromedusie" ) ,  by  A.  Weissmann,  1883. 
Cf.  a  later  work  by  this  German  7,oi)logist,  which  is  very  comprehensive, 
"Das  Keimplasma,  eine  Theorie  der  Vererbung"  ("Germ  Plasm,  a  The- 
ory of   its  Inheritance").      1898:      Jena. 

♦  "Die  Entwiiklunpsthcorien"  ("Tlioories  of  Evolution"),  by  Delage 
and  M.  Goldsmith.      (An  authorised  translation  exists  in  German.) 


450 


THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 


quite  genuinely,  living  pieces  of  his  or  her  parents.  And  as 
they  are  transmitted  unchanged  and  alive  to  our  children 
(CI  to  C4),  and  then  to  our  children's  children  (Ul  to  D8, 
etc.),  it  is  a  fact  that  a  portion  of  grandfather,  grandchild, 
great-grandchild,  etc.,  does  consist  of  the  same  living  sub- 
stance. And  as  we  can  and  must  continue  in  this  way  indefi- 
nitely (as  indicated  by  the  side  branches  of  cells  A  and  D  left 
open),  it  is  clear  that  the  tree  shaded  light,  which  is  all  one 
and  is  constantly  putting  forth  fresh  branches,  represents  a 
single  organism  all  parts  of  which  are  connected  together. 


From  this  the  individual  human  beings  (tinted  dark  and 
designated  as  individual  beings  by  letters)  grow,  just  as  apples 
do  on  a  tree.  They  are  like  particles  of  this  organism;  in 
time  they  fall  away,  and  in  so  doing  become  individual  units, 
and  die. 

But  the  tree  of  germ-plasm  which  confers  form  and  exist- 
ence on  the  different  individual  units,  and  is  consequently  the 
principal  important  part  of  humanity,  lives  on  forever  as  a 
homogeneous  organism.  A  portion  of  this  homogeneous  or- 
ganism, however,  lives  also  in  each  individual  unit,  physically 
connecting  us  permanently  with  mankind  in  general.     True, 


THE  WORLD  AS  AN  ORGANISM  451 

it  can  be  eliminated  from  the  human  body  without  utterly  de- 
stroying life,  but  what  there  is  left  of  the  man  is  proved  by 
such  deplorable  beings  as  eunuchs  and  castrated  persons.  All 
recent  experiments,  indeed,  clearly  show  that  all  those  instincts 
of  life  which  make  a  human  being  into  a  human  being  are  in- 
separably connected  with  this  remnant  of  mankind  in  general 
which  we  have  in  us.  It  lives  in  us  and  manifests  itself  in  us. 
Egoism  represents,  so  to  speak,  physical  self -consciousness,  and 
altruism  represents  self-consciousness  of  the  germ-plasm. 
Others  have,  therefore,  as  we  see,  a  right  represented  in  me, 
for  a  portion  of  their  living  substance  also  lives  in  me. 

Whoever  first  spoke  of  the  slaying  of  egoism  as  a  slajang  of 
the  flesh  had  a  foreboding  of  more  than  he  expressed.  For 
the  flesh  is  the  perishable  body,  which  falls  from  the  universal 
tree  of  humanity.  That  M'hich  remains,  however,  that  which 
makes  men  capable  of  love  (that  is,  of  morality  in  the  broadest 
sense  of  the  word)  is  germ-plasm,  or  what  the  Holy  Scripture 
calls  the  sacred  pneuma  "capable  of  procreation."  Luther 
translated  this  by  "der  Geist,  dcr  Jehendig  macht"  ("The 
spirit  that  quickeneth"),  thus  attributing  a  purely  symbolical 
meaning  to  it.  The  conception  of  pneuma,  however,  goes  be- 
yond this,  and  cannot  be  understood  save  by  those  acquainted 
with  its  origin  in  Greek  philosoph}'.  Into  this  I  am  unable 
to  enter  in  detail,  but  Diogenes  Laertes  expressly  states,  "That 
which  causes  the  procreation  of  us  all  is  the  pneuma, ' '  ^  thus 
meaning  precisely  what  we  may  now  call  germ-plasm.  More- 
over, just  as  we  must  now  make  up  our  minds  that  an  almost 
imponderable  quantity  of  germ-plasm  -  influences  the  whole 
body,  even  so  the  men  of  old  imagined  the  mysterious  workings 
of  the  "Holy  Spirit." 

In  the  sixth  chapter  of  the  Gospel  of  St.  John,  verse  63,  we 
read,  "It  is  the  spirit  [pneuma]  that  quickeneth;  the  flesh 
profiteth  nothing."     Thus  the  Bible  also  must  really  bo  refer- 

1  Diopenes  Laertes  VII,   1.5G. 

-  The  l)ody  of  a  human  being  is  about  one  thousand  billion  times 
greater  than  the  germ-plasm  from  which  it  has  arisen. 


452  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

ring  to  germ  plasma.  Now,  there  is  no  need  to  state  that  this 
pneuma  is  never  clearly  expressed  either  in  Greek  writings 
or  in  the  Bible  what  we  now  mean  by  germ  plasm.  Neverthe- 
less, it  is  important  to  recollect  that  those  who  wrote  the  Bible 
felt,  as  it  were,  intuitively,  that  it  existed.  The  concep- 
tion of  the  crucifying  of  the  flesh,  indeed,  has  been  grossly  mis- 
interpreted. Flesh  was  identified  with  sensuality  and  with 
love, — indeed,  after  a  time,  almost  altogether  with  love,— and 
the  pneuma  with  the  "higher"  attributes  of  the  soul.  That 
this  is  wrong  is  clear  from  I  Corinthians,  xv.  44  ^  where  the 
soul  is  mentioned  in  contradistinction  to  the  pneuma.  It  is  a 
pneumatic  body  to  which  reference  is  here  made ;  and  this 
body,  if  we  hold  fast  to  what  is  known  to  have  been  the  mean- 
ing of  the  pneumatic  in  ancient  times,  actually  materially 
passes  through  the  body  of  all  human  beings.  Thus  we  have 
here  again  the  exact  notion  of  germ  plasm. 

The  pneuma,  in  short,  is  something  above  mankind,  which 
unites  mankind  together.  It  creates  the  relations  between 
man  and  man,  and  also  love  between  man  and  wife  and  be- 
tween man  and  his  neighbor.  It  creates  eternal  life  and  it 
creates  morality.  The  victory  of  the  pneuma  is  the  victory 
of  germ  plasm  over  somato  plasm,  the  victory  of  the  concep- 
tion of  humanity  over  individual  consciousness,  and  of  altru- 
ism over  egoism.  In  this  sense  we  all  can  and  all  ought  to 
believe  in  the  Holy  Ghost,  the  pneuma  hagion. 

The  habit  of  combating  and  pouring  contempt  on  "earthly 
love,"  as  it  is  called,  is  all  the  worse  because  it  helps,  and 
helps  very  materially,  to  bring  about  heavenly  love. 

§  164. — Earthly  Love  Makes  Heaverily  Love  Possible 

There  has  been  a  vast  deal  of  speculation  as  to  why  pro- 
creation must  take  place  by  means  of  a  man  and  a  woman, 
and  why  the  children  of  human  beings  cannot  simply  be  cut 
away  from  an  unsexual  procreator,  as  is,  at  any  rate  for  the 

1  Luther  here  translates  spiritual  (psychic)  by  natural,  which  is 
certainly  not  the  sense. 


THE  WORLD  AS  AN  ORGANISM  453 

time  being,  the  case  with  the  lowest  animals.  The  question 
of  the  causes  for  this  ma^'  be  put  aside  here,  but  not  that  of 
the  consequences. 

Whenever  a  creature  produces  six  new  creatures  by  par- 
thenogenesis, experience  proves  that  each  one  of  them  is 
slightly  different  from  the  rest ;  and  if  we  imagine  these  six 
offspring  producing  six  species,  again  by  parthenogenesis, 
then  these  will  become  more  and  more  dissimilar,  for  each  spe- 
cies will  always  be  inheriting  more  and  more  new  qualities' 
in  which  the  others  can  necessarily  have  no  part.  On  the 
other  hand,  they  in  turn  are  expo.sed  to  other  influences. 
Each  individual  one,  in  short,  invariably  becomes  the  ancestor 
of  a  new  species. 

Thus  the  organisms  become  increasingly  split  up,  and  even 
if  at  a  particular  time  one  branch  had  succeeded  in  domi- 
nating the  world,  as  man  is  now  doing,  yet  from  that  very 
day  they  would  begin  to  divide  up  again.  In  that  case  we 
should  still  actually  have  the  sinful  sons  of  Cain  with  us, 
and  the  good  children  of  Abel.  But  if  the  sons  of  Cain 
had  murdered  all  the  descendants  of  Abel,  then  the  race  of 
Cain  would  again  be  split  up  into  several  divisions,  which  in 
course  of  time  would  have  become  quite  dissimilar.  BetMeen 
these  two  types  of  men  a  fight  would  again  have  become  nec- 
essary. In  short,  the  inevitable  result  of  this  type  of  pro- 
creation would  be  an  everlasting  war  waged  by  every  one 
against  every  one  else,  for,  as  time  went  on,  the  transmitted 
qualities  would  decrease  almost  to  the  vanishing-point,  and 
would  be  quite  unable  to  keep  the  other  qualities  under  con- 
trol. 

But  we  are  sexually  begotten,  and  although  when  parents 
have  six  children,  each  one  is  certainly  different  from  the 
rest,  yet  these  differences  always  counterbalance  one  another 
because    the   children's    children    intermarry,    and    thus    the 

1  How  this  occurs  is  of  no  moment.  It  is  a  fact  that  animal  species 
alter  in  process  of  evolution,  and  this  is  the  only  fact  here  alleged  in 
support  of  any  statements. 


454  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

varying  accumulated  inheritance  of  qualities  has  never  time 
to  become  very  different.  Sexual  love  and  sexual  intercourse, 
therefore,  are  both  the  means  of  insuring  the  preservation  of 
the  uniformity  of  germ  substance  in  any  animal  species  in 
so  far  as  the  animal  has  an  opportunity  of  sexual  union  with 
others  of  its  species.  They  constantly  bring  the  entire  or- 
ganism of  a  whole  race  into  contact  and  keep  it  together. 
Indeed,  to  the  extent  to  which  such  an  entire  organism  necessi- 
tates altruism,  earthly  love  is  the  mother  of  heavenly  love. 

The  basis  for  the  opinions  just  set  forth  has  already  been 
known  for  a  considerable  time.  In  1853  the  German  zoologist 
Rudolf  Leuckart  discussed  the  tendency  of  sexual  procrea- 
tion to  prevent  the  degeneration — that  is,  the  dispersion — ■ 
of  a  race.  In  1859,  Charles  Darwin  ^  stated  plainly  that 
crossing,  as  opposed  to  unsexual  reproduction,  is  of  great  im- 
portance in  nature,  inasmuch  as  by  this  means  the  individual 
units  belonging  to  a  species  or  variety  are  kept  pure  and  uni- 
form in  character.  His  ideas  were  adopted  in  the  main  by 
Spencer  (1864),  Niigeli  (1866),  Hatscheck  (1887),  Hertwig 
(1893),  Strassburger  (1900),  and  Weismann  (1902).  Weis- 
mann,  with  his  theory  of  ideas  and  determinants,  created  use- 
less confusion,  while  others  think,  for  instance,  that  the  for- 
mation of  different  varieties  is  the  very  reason  for  bisexual 
procreation. 

But  it  is  the  Russian  biologist  Janicki "  who  most  strongly 
insisted  on  the  importance  of  sexual  reproduction.  He 
writes : 

The  world,  if  I  may  say  so,  has  not  been  broken  up  into  a  mass 
of  independent  fragments,  which  then,  forever  isolated  from  one 
another  and  mere  parts  of  the  whole,  must  strike  out  for  themselves 
on    straight    courses,   with   only   side   branches.     On    the    contrary, 

1  "Origin  of  Species,"  Chapter  IV. 

-  "Uber  Ursprung  und  Bedeutung  der  Amphimixis  Ein  Beitrag  zur 
Lehre  der  geschlechtliehen  Zeugung"  ('"On  the  Origin  and  Significance 
of  Amphimixis.  A  Contribution  to  the  Doctrine  of  Sexual  Procre- 
ation"), by   C.   von   -Janicki,    1906.     "Biolog.   Zentralblatt,"   XXVI,  No. 


THE  ^YORLD  AS  AN  ORGANISM  455 

owing  to  bisexual  procreation  [amphimixis],  the  image  of  the 
macrocosm  is  periodically,  but  incessantly,  set  up  as  a  microcosm 
in  each  part,  and  the  macrocosm  resolves  itself  into  a  thousand 
microcosms.  It  is  as  if  nature,  by  introducing  bisexual  procrea- 
tion, had  made  a  compromise  between  individualization  and  the 
hypothetical  condition  of  panmixis  [procreation  by  many].  The 
individual  units  are  meant  to  be  us  independent  as  possible,  to  be 
able  to  move  about  freely  and  independently,  etc.,  but,  on  the  other 
hand,  to  be  materially  and  continuously  connected  with  one  another, 
and  remain  in  constant  contact,  like  slrawbei'ry-plants,  the  runners 
of  which  are  joined  together.  There  is  no  way  out  of  this  save 
the  penodical  admixture  of  germ  substances,  whereby  the  necessar>' 
material  continuity  is  transferred  into  each  single  individual  unit, 
paradoxical  as  this  may  sound,  for  the  continuity  is  present  only 
on  a  miniature  scale.  But  it  is  there.  Each  separate  individual 
develops,  as  it  were,  on  an  invisible  system  of  rhizomes  [root  sub- 
stances], which  unite  together  the  germ  substances  of  countless 
pei*sonalities.  This  means  the  negation  of  tliat  individualization 
which  for  vegetative  purposes  is  indispensable;  and  if  we  look  at  a 
paramaecium  under  the  microscope,  we  do  not  at  first  suspect  how 
something  endlessly  complex  and  multifai'ious,  a  whole,  is  to  be 
found  in  this  particle  of  living  plasm.  This  whole  is  most  inti- 
mately connected  by  invisible  threads  with  the  sum  total  of  in- 
dividuals who  compose  the  particular  species  in  question,  and  who 
live  or  have  lived  a  separate  existence  under  the  most  diverse  con- 
ditions. 

And  on  page  789  he  says: 

But  let  us  return  to  amphimixis.  As  in  the  ease  of  unicellular 
creatures,  so  also  in  that  of  polycellular  ones,  periodically  occur- 
ring bisexual  procreation  is  a  physiological  necessity.  In  both  cases 
bisexual  procreation  affords  each  individual  a  constantly  renewed 
connection  with  that  fonn  of  life  as  a  whole  in  which  the  species 
consists.  In  this  close  connection  with  the  whole  the  simplest  niono- 
plastid  becomes  modified  periodically  as  time  proceeds,  and  how- 
ever often  it  is  divided  up,  it  never  meets  with  a  natural  death  and 
consequent  complete  new  formation  apart  from  its  growth;  its  body 
is  simply  remodeled,  as  in  the  case  of  a  plastic  substance.  In  the 
same  connection  with  the  whole,  in  a  condensed  primeval  plasm,  as 


456  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

it  were,  the  life  of  poH'plastids  is  rooted.  The  continuity  of  life, 
however,  is  assured  by  germ  substances  [plasms]  alone.  Somata 
appear  in  the  light  of  a  series  of  disconnected  curves,  which  arise 
one  after  another  from  a  continuous  curve,  that  of  the  germ  sub- 
stances taken  together.  The  bodies  have  lost  their  plasticity,  and 
each  time  bisexual  procreation  takes  place  they  are  formed  anew  in 
ontogenesis. 

To  this  there  is  searcel}'  anything  to  add.  Janicki  has  ex- 
hausted the  problem,  and  all  that  now  remains  is  to  draw  the 
necessary  inferences  and  apply  them  to  man's  moral  actions. 

2. — THE   APPROACHING    MUTATION   OF    WAR 

§  165. — The  Meaning  of  Mutation 

First  and  foremost  it  must  be  proved  that  the  practical 
importance  of  this  purely  physical  connection  in  the  life  of 
nations  does  not  end  with  its  being  the  solid  basis  of  altru- 
ism. If,  owing  to  any  influence,  this  living  substance  should 
at  any  time  have  acquired  the  capacity  of  changing  after 
a  certain  lapse  of  time,  for  instance  a  thousand  years,  then 
we  must  not  be  surprised  if  after  this  time  all  who  have  some 
of  this  living  substance  in  them  suddenly  undergo  a  corre- 
sponding change. 

The  enormous  importance  of  this  phenomenon  need  not  be 
insisted  upon.  It  means  neither  more  nor  less  than  that  the 
future  history  of  mankind  is  already  present  as  a  func- 
tional occurrence  in  the  bodies  of  contemporary  humanity. 
That  this  is  true  of  the  brain  on  a  smaller  scale  was  explained 
in  §  26 ;  but  it  now  becomes  clear  that  this  may  be  an  abso- 
lutely universal  principle  prevailing  throughout  the  organic 
world. 

Now,  such  changes  and  sudden  variations  do  actually  oc- 
cur, and  in  the  ease  of  plants,  where  investigation  is  easier, 
owing  to  generations  succeeding  one  another  more  rapidly, 
it  has  been  carefully  studied.     The  Dutch  botanist  Hugo  de 


THE  WORLD  AS  AN  ORGANISM  457 

Vries  ^  has  shown  that  in  a  field  of  mullein,  in  which  for 
centuries  past  the  flowers  had  never  varied,  noteworthy  dif- 
ferences suddenly  began  to  appear.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  this 
is  what  happened.  In  a  field  of  mullein  each  year  a  few 
plants  show  certain  abnormalities,  such  as  longer  or  shorter, 
thicker  or  thinner  leaves,  than  the  rest.  Generally  speak- 
ing, such  abnormalities  are  of  no  importance,  but  suddenly 
in  one  particular  year  one  of  these  abnormalities — long  leaves, 
for  instance — occurs  in  a  great  many  cases  of  plants  (Pro- 
fessor de  Vries 's  fifth  law).  These  long  leaves  are  quite 
constant  at  once;  that  is,  they  are  fully  transmitted,  inde- 
pendently of  external  conditions.  The  following  year,  there- 
fore, this  new  kind  of  mullein  occurs  generally,  and  thus,  as 
Professor  de  Vries  says,  a  new  kind  of  mullein  has  arisen  by 
sudden  variations,  or  so-called  mutation. 

How  this  change  comes  about,  whether  really  b}'^  what 
Professor  de  Vries  calls  mutation,  or  whether,  as  others  state, 
it  is  only  a  case  of  latent  qualites  becoming  again  manifest, 
is  of  no  moment  here.  What  does  matter  is  the  actual  fact, 
which  simply  proves  that  some  connection  must  exist  between 
the  individual  mullein-plants,  and  that  this  connection  is  still 
strong  enough  to  affect  them.  Thus  between  the  individual 
mullein-plants  there  is  an  actual  cooperation  of  forces.  That 
is  the  mulleins  as  a  whole,  despite  their  individual  peculiari- 
ties, form  an  organism  as  a  whole.  And  the  fact  of  the  con- 
tinuity and  immortality  of  the  germ  plasm  proves  that  such 
an  organism  is  conceivable. 

Now,  beyond  doubt  a  similar  connection  exists  between  hu- 
man beings,  and  as  we  human  beings,  like  all  other  animals, 
vary  mainly  with  whatever  organ  has  of  late  undergone  the 
greatest  changes  (that  is,  with  the  human  brain),  most  in- 
stances of  variation  will  be  found   in  the  psychic  domain. 

1  "Arten  und  Varietaten  und  ihre  Entestehung  durch  Mutation." 
("Species  and  Varieties  and  their  origin  owing  to  Mutation"),  by  H. 
de  Vries,  1906. 


458  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

Here  it  is,  however,  that  the  striking  similarity  between  the 
mullein  and  man  occurs.  In  each  year  human  beings  are 
present  with  brain  variations.  These  variations  are  the  ex- 
pression of  abnormal  ideas,  and  may  be  described  as  signs  of 
madness  or  of  genius,  according  to  whether  they  are  capricious 
or  reasonable.  Whether  they  really  portend  genius  or  mad- 
ness does  not  depend  on  the  human  beings  themselves,  but 
on  the  future,  or  rather  on  the  mutations  already  latent  in 
millions  of  their  fellow-men,  at  present  apparently  entirely 
normal. 

Now,  if  the  elongation  of  the  leaves  is  already  present  in 
the  germ  plasm  of  the  mullein,  it  matters  not  that  there 
should  be  abnormal  mulleins,  with  too  short,  too  thick,  or  too 
thin  leaves:  they  are  bound  soon  to  die  out.  It  is  the  long- 
leaves  species  of  this  particular  year  which  are  the  geniuses 
heralding  the  coming  change.  And  so  it  is  with  men.  If 
the  time  is  not  yet  fulfilled,  if  brain  variations  are  not  yet 
latent  in  us,  it  is  of  no  use  for  men  of  genius  to  arise  and 
prophesy  changes.  But  when  the  time  is  fulfilled,  then  there 
is  no  longer  need  for  prophecy.  The  least  trifle  is  sufficient 
to  give  the  needed  impetus.  Huss  could  achieve  nothing 
where  Luther  carried  all  before  him.  Socrates  took  poison, 
but  the  crucified  Christ  left  behind  Him  a  religion  which  has 
influenced  the  whole  world. 

Suddenly,  at  much  about  the  same  time,  in  Germany, 
France,  and  England  men  took  to  flying,  just  as  formerly  the 
conception  of  charity  arose  almost  simultaneously  in  the  most 
diverse  parts  of  the  world. 

§  166. — The  Mother  of  War  Instincts 

These  series  of  evolutions  are  concluded,  and  we  can  sur- 
vey them.  Others  are  still  awaiting  completion  by  evolu- 
tions to  come.  Thus,  for  instance,  Moltke  discovered  the 
ethieal  value  of  war,  while  Tolstoy  insisted,  as  no  one  else 
had  ever  done,  on  the  absolute  necessity  for  its  abolition.  For 
the  present  it  cannot  be  said  which  of  these  two  variations 


THE  WORLD  AS  AX  ORGANISM  459 

represents  madness  variation  and  which  genius.  That  de- 
pends on  the  direction  in  which  the  majority  of  our  descend- 
ants mutate  in  the  future.  I  should  merely  like  to  observe 
that  the  enthusiasm  with  which  the  War  of  1914  is  being  car- 
ried on  is  absolutely  no  proof  of  Moltke's  having  been  pos- 
sessed of  genius ;  for  in  any  organ  which  is  shortly  to  undergo 
a  mutation  great  and  frequent  variations  occur  some  time  be- 
forehand. The  fact  on  which  I  insisted  in  my  tirst  chapter, 
that  nowadays  our  opinions  about  war  are  more  widely  di- 
vergent than  ever  before,  seems  to  me  a  proof  that  before 
long  our  opinion  of  it  will  radically  change.  And  the  only 
one  of  the  different  mutations  which  will  be  able  to  endure 
will  of  course  be  the  one  best  suited  to  actual  present  condi- 
tions. Consequently  all  that  has  been  said  in  preceding  chap- 
ters about  the  injuriousness  of  war  at  the  present  period  jus- 
tifies us  in  coming  to  the  conclusion  that  man  will  one  day 
be  transmuted  once  for  all  into  a  peaceful  creature.  The 
opinions  of  JMoltke  and  his  satellites  down  to  Bernhardi,  after 
all,  wholly  differ  from  those  of  the  average  mortal,  and  may 
be  considered  merely  as  a  good  omen  for  this  mutation  being 
no  longer  far  off. 

Indeed,  everything  points  to  the  fact  that  the  dusk  of  the 
war  god's  day  has  already  set  in. 

3. — THE    UNITY    OF    MANKIND   AS   REGARDS   BOTH    TIME 
AND   SPACE 

§  167. — Man's  Connections  from  the  Point  of  View  of  Time 

It  is  impossible  to  conceive  of  man  as  an  insolated  being, 
and  this  not  merely  because  of  his  being  the  product  of  a 
succession  of  ancestors  who  extend  back  perhaps  for  millions 
of  years,  and  whose  gradual  perfecting  he  represents.  On 
this  fact,  however,  I  do  not  purpose  to  touch  further  here,  as 
it  can  be  looked  up  in  any  history  of  evolution.  Note,  how- 
ever, the  unusual  complication  of  the  mechanism  resulting 
from  this  fact.     Man  lives  on  directly  by  his  germ  plasm  iu 


460  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

his  children  and  children's  children.  Hence,  supposing  there 
are  three  children  on  an  average  in  a  family,  by  the  twenty- 
first  generation  (that  is,  in  about  five  hundred  years)  his 
vitality  will  be  represented  in  a  number  of  live  human  be- 
ings which  will  about  correspond  to  that  of  the  whole  of 
mankind. 

Or,  conversely,  each  individual  human  being  has  in  him 
a  drop  of  blood  of  each  human  being  who  lived  five  hundred 
years  ago.  The  result  is  such  an  infinite  number  of  connec- 
tions that  at  present  there  seems  not  the  slightest  chance  of 
completely  following  up  any  single  case.  Houston  Stewart 
Chamberlain  says  every  important  achievement  we  owe  to 
men  of  Teutonic  blood.  Possibly,  but  it  is  just  as  possible 
that,  as  the  modem  French  anthropologist  Paul  Souday  says, 
we  owe  everything  of  importance  to  Celtic  blood.  And  if  any 
one  arose  and  said  everything  good  is  due  to  Slavonic  blood,  it 
would  be  scarcely  possible  to  disprove  his  assertion. 

No  one  can  state  in  which  of  the  ancestors  of  a  man  of 
genius  the  germ  plasm  was  so  much  modified  that  the  said 
man  of  genius  was  the  result.  Only  one  assertion  can  be 
made  with  absolute  assurance,  and  that  is  that  he  did  not  be- 
come a  genius  of  himself,  but  is  the  product  of  unknown  an- 
cestors, who  must  be  considered  as  a  whole  for  the  simple 
reason  that  they  are  not  individually  known. 

Perhaps  even  more  important  than  these  direct  physical 
links  with  the  past  is  very  often  the  intellectual  influence 
of  a  human  being — an  influence,  of  course  indirectly,  also 
physical.  It  is  a  commonplace  to  say  that  man  survives  in 
his  works,  but  what  is  remarkable  is  how  even  anonymous 
human  beings  have  survived  in  this  way.  Thus  some  insig- 
nificant diluvial  human  being,  whose  body  and  whose  very 
skeleton  are  probably  long  since  dust  and  ashes,  covered  the 
walls  of  the  caves  in  the  beautiful  Valley  of  the  Vezere  with 
primitive  markings  intended  to  represent  mammoths  and 
bisons.  Perhaps  he  did  so  only  because  he  was  bored,  but 
on  his  scratchings  we  to-day  are  basing  theories  as  to  the 


THE  WORLD  AS  AN  ORGANISM  461 

origin  of  art.  Thousands  of  years  ago  an  unknown,  perhaps 
idiotic,  female  slave  at  play  imprinted  her  five  fingers  for 
the  first  on  a  clay  vessel,  and  in  so  doing  kept  the  brains  of 
thousands  of  inquirers  busy  in  the  nineteenth  century.  The 
half-monkey  or  half-man  the  roof  of  whose  skull  chanced  to 
have  escaped  decomposition  at  Trinil  in  Java  certainly  never 
ventured  to  dream  that  after  a  fabulous  lapse  of  time  he 
would  become  a  personage  of  importance  for  all  our  scien- 
tists and  would  even  influence  our  whole  attitude  to  life. 

No  one  knows  or  can  foretell  how  much  an  individual  man 
is  influencing  or  may  influence  mankind,  and  in  historic 
times  there  has  been  no  change  in  this  respect.  Have  we 
any  idea  what  occurrence,  what  saying,  or  even  what  gesture 
of  some  unknown  human  being  may  possibly  have  enabled 
human  beings  such  as  Jesus  or  Socrates  first  to  utter  thoughts 
which  have  decisively  influenced  the  fate  of  mankind  for 
thousands  of  years,  have  influenced  it,  indeed,  for  all  time? 
Yet  it  may  be  that  at  the  outset  of  these  thoughts  is  some 
vanished  human  being  whose  very  name  is  forgotten,  but 
whose  works  live  after  him. 

It  would  be  idle  to  speculate  as  to  what  may  have  been, 
but  not  idle  clearly  to  realize  that  such  things  are  possible. 
We  see  an  endless  series  of  effects  and  causes,  which  in  de- 
tail we  do  not  know,  and  which  for  that  very  reason  we  are 
obliged  to  consider  as  a  whole.  I\Iankind  would  be  incompre- 
hensible if  we  did  not  look  upon  it  as  a  homogeneous  organism. 

Now  that  thoughts,  once  expressed,  lead  among  mankind 
a  life  so  to  speak  apart  from  their  author,  penetrate  into 
others,  as  it  were,  and  are  a  living  influence  on  them,  just 
as  is  physical  germ  plasm,  there  can  be  not  the  slightest 
doubt.  These  thoughts,  like  germ  plasm,  are  endowed  with 
eternal  life,  and  proclaim  aloud  the  primeval  Orphic  wisdom 
of  the  harmony  of  all  life  and  the  fact  of  mankind  being  an 
organism. 

As  a  wise  man  of  old,  Empedocles,  sings,  in  this  sense 
there  is  neither  birth  nor  death :     ' '  Yet  another  truth  will  I 


462  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

tell  unto  thee.  Not  a  single  mortal  thing  is  truly  born,  and 
Death  tiie  destroyer  is  not  the  end.  There  is  naught  but 
intermixture  and  exchange  of  what  is  intermixed.  Only 
among  men  is  it  customary  to  call  this  birth." 

Thus  material  and  dynamically  intellectual  connections  are 
transmitted  through  boundless  periods  of  time,  binding  man- 
kind together;  nor  can  any  one  say  which  are  of  the  more 
moment,  the  physical  or  the  intellectual  connections. 

§  168. — Man's  Connections  in  Regard  to  Space 

Easier  to  prove  is  the  existence  of  an  intellectual  bond  be- 
tween man  and  man — easier,  at  any  rate,  up  to  a  certain 
point.  Still  more  obvious  is  this  intellectual  bond  if  we 
consider  the  spatial  relations  of  contemporary  human  beings. 
ICven  in  this  respect  no  living  man  can  be  considered  as  other 
than  part  of  an  organism. 

Now,  a  man  talks  and  learns  only  because  he  sees  others 
doing  so ;  that  is,  because  he  has  some  connection  with  these 
others.  He  can  work  only  because  he  relies  on  the  work  of 
other  men.  For  instance,  I  can  write  only  because  some- 
where men  have  felled  trees,  other  men  have  cut  them  up, 
others  again  converted  them  into  paper,  and  finally  a  whole 
series  of  men  have  conveyed  the  finished  product  to  me.  An- 
other endless  series  of  men  furnish  me  with  a  pen,,  another 
with  a  pen-holder,  and  yet  another  with  ink.  But  in  order 
that  these  words  may  be  printed,  that  is,  exert  any  efPect, 
more  endless  hosts  of  men  throughout  the  M'orld  have  been 
busy.  Some  mined  the  lead  for  the  type,  others  the  iron  for 
the  machines,  others,  again,  produced  the  oil  and  dye-stuffs 
for  the  printers'  ink;  and  each  of  these  workers  requires  tools 
and  food,  the  production  of  which  again  has  employed  more 
enormous  groups  of  people. 

Thus,  if  we  go  back  to  ultimate  causes,  perhaps  the  whole 
world  may  have  had  to  help  in  order  that  even  the  smallest 
thought  of  an  author  may  be  transmitted  to  his  reader ;  while 
as  for  the  thought  itself,  it  proceeds  from  millions  of  brains. 


THE  WORLD  AS  AN  ORGANISM  463 

and  in  the  end  can  produce  effect  only  because  it  is  somehow 
predestined  to  do  so  in  the  brain  of  the  recipient.  In  short, 
neither  intellectually  nor  physically  would  man  be  conceivable 
except  regarded  as  part  of  a  great  organism. 

We  call  the  principles  on  which  mankind  works  division 
of  labor;  but  division  is  possible  only  if  there  is  some  whole 
which  can  be  divided ;  that  is,  the  labor  of  all  mankind.  This 
sum  total  of  labor,  however,  is  and  must  proceed  from  an 
entire  body.  That  this  division  of  labor  is  demonstrably 
present  in  many  human  actions  unknown  to  us  is  all  the  more 
proof  that  there  actually  is  something  present  which  is  su- 
perior to  the  will  of  the  individual  man, 

Kant  already  pointed  out  that  there  are  many  purely 
physical  qualities  which  obey  great  laws,  the  result  being,  so 
to  speak,  an  "average  human  being"  who  in  reality  has  no 
existence  at  all.  This  average  human  being  in  Germany  is 
50.6  per  cent,  man  and  49.4  per  cent,  woman ;  he  or  she  en- 
ters into  .8  marriages,  has  2^2  children,  consumes  2500  cal- 
ories, commits  .0002  suicides,  .00001  murders,  lives  40.5  years, 
and  so  on. 

We  believe  that  it  is  of  our  own  free  will  that  we  marry, 
beget  a  child,  get  drunk,  etc.,  whereas  in  so  doing  we  are 
unconsciously^  merely  fulfilling  a  law  in  order  to  fulfil  a  par- 
ticular ea.se  of  the  universal  law.  Moreover,  it  must  not  be 
foi-gotten  that  correlative  growth,  or,  rather,  correlative 
variability,  can  be  proved  to  occur  in  the  individual  organ- 
ism as  also  in  mankind.  Darwin  ^  has  defined  this  phenom- 
enon as  foUows:  different  parts  of  an  organism  are  so  con- 
nected in  some  unknown  way  with  one  another  that,  if  one 
part  modifies,  the  other  does  likewise,  and  if  modifications  oc- 
cur very  freciuently  in  one  part,  owing  to  selection,  then  other 
parts  become  modified. 

Now,  it  is  quite  easy  to  show  that,  if  a  new  power-press 
is  invented  in  America,  a  change  occurs  in  European  news- 
papers; that,  when  thp  number  of  people  in  Europe  increases 

1  "Descent  of  Ma*"'     lutroduction  to  Vol.  I. 


464  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

too  much  and  there  is  consequently  more  emigration,  this 
has  its  effects  on  conditions  generally  in  America  and  Aus- 
tralia ;  and  that  whenever  Armenians  are  murdered  by  the 
Turks  this  has  its  effect  on  the  decisions  taken  in  Washing- 
ton. ]\Iany  more  similar  instances  of  cause  and  effect  might 
also  be  cited.  All  which  proves  that  just  as  not  a  cell  can 
change  in  the  human  body  without  the  whole  body  suffer- 
ing therefrom  or  being  affected  thereby,  similarly  no  one  on 
earth  can  do  or  suffer  anything  without  all  mankind,  and 
therefore  every  single  person,  being  affected  in  some  way, 
though  often  unperceivable,  it  is  true. 

Furthermore,  just  as  a  single  cell  forcibly  removed  from 
its  surroundings  camiot  long  survive  alone,  even  so  man,  alone 
and  isolated,  perishes. 

As  far  as  children  are  concerned,  this  is  obvious,  but  even 
adults,  who  have  already  benefited  by  the  influence  of  man- 
kind in  general,  cannot  survive  unless  perhaps  under  alto- 
gether exceptionally  favorable  conditions;  for  instance  on 
a  solitary  island  where  there  are  neither  savage  beasts  nor  any 
other  special  hazards. 

4. — THE   AGE   "when    MANY    SHALL   GO    TO    AND   FRO" 

§  169. — Humanity  and  Intercommnnication 

All  mankind,  therefore,  is  one  organism  physically  and  ma- 
terially united  together  by  the  fact  of  germ  plasm,  and  intel- 
lectually and  dynamically  by  the  fact  of  action  and  reaction. 
But  whereas  the  connections  due  to  germ  plasm  are  immuta- 
ble, the  reciprocal  relations  are  perpetually  changing.  In- 
deed, it  is  beyond  doubt  that  their  numbers  increase  with 
time ;  that  is,  with  their  help  mankind  is  developing  into  a  more 
and  more  perfect  organism.  Hence  it  is  these  dynamic  rela- 
tions, this  interchange  of  intellectual  forces,  on  which  the 
pitch  of  organization  attained  by  the  human  organism  de- 
pends in  the  last  resort.  Were  these  relations,  therefore,  ab- 
solutely clearly  set  forth,  then  we  should  know  what  point 


THE  WORLD  AS  AN  ORGANISM  465 

in  its  development  the  human  race  has  already  attained,  and 
what  degree  of  universal  brotherhood  could  be  demanded  of  it. 

Hence  nothing  perhaps  would  be  so  well  worth  doing  as  to 
describe  these  relations ;  but  this  is  impossible  within  the  limits 
of  this  volume,  owing  to  their  being  absolutely  limitless  in 
number.  Everything  which  we  call  civilization  or  culture, 
language,  morals,  law,  or  rights,  technical  achievement,  art,  or 
science,  and  much  else  besides,  are  merely  ways  of  expressing 
such  relations  and  the  means  of  continuing  them.  There  are 
two  ways,  however,  and  only  two,  of  hindering  everything  of 
the  kind.     One  of  these  ways  is  crime,  and  war  is  the  other. 

All  these  relations  taken  together  may  broadly  and  gener- 
ally be  described  as  humanity,  for  the  possibility  of  such  rela- 
tions is  precisely  that  which  confers  on  the  human  race  its 
unique,  dominant  position  in  nature.  This  humanity,  how- 
ever, thus  considered,  ceases  to  be  a  vague  conception  of  any 
remote  ideal  of  our  dreams,  but  an  absolutely  real  embodiment 
of  an  existing  link.  The  ideal  and  the  future  are  to  be  found 
only  in  the  perfecting  and  further  development  of  what  al- 
ready exists,  and  in  opposing  everything  tending  to  obstruct 
such  further  development;  that  is,  in  opposition  to  crime  and 
war. 

To  some,  however,  the  fine  word  humanity  still  does  not 
convey  a  sufficiently  definite  idea,  which  is  partly  due  to  its 
being  so  frequently  misused.  To  others  again  the  phrase 
"human  relationships"  seems  too  colorless.  They  should 
therefore  select  the  tangible  relationship, — intercommunica- 
tion,— which  does  not  include  merely  trade,  post,  and  railways, 
but,  after  all,  everything  forming  a  tie  between  man  and  man ; 
and  a  survey  of  the  history  of  evolution  would  soon  prove  that 
all  this  springs  from  the  same  origin — love.  Humanity,  love, 
and  intercommunication  accordingly  all  mean  the  same  thing. 

What,  therefore,  really  ought  to  be  done  is  to  write  a  history 
of  intercommunication  from  the  point  of  view  of  humanity, 
and  likewise  to  promote  it.  Suffice  it  here  to  say,  however,  that 
in  this  respect  we  are  undoubtedly  passing  through  a  critical 


466  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

period.  During  tlie  last  century  all  technical  means  of  travel 
and  communication  were  perfected  by  leaps  and  bounds,  and 
it  is  inconceivable  that  this  should  not  produce  any  moral 
after  effects. 

This  striving  after  perfection  of  means  of  communication 
finds  unconscious  expression  in  the  socialist  movement  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  the  so-called  revival  of  the  Christian 
spirit,  and  in  pacifism. 

But  just  because  man  was  not  aware  of  these  aspirations  of 
his,  the  masses,  with  their  instinctive  conservatism,  rebelled 
against  the  inevitable  new  order  of  things  and  the  regrettable, 
but  probably  inevitable,  reaction  was  the  War  of  1914. 

The  war,  however,  is  only  an  episode,  and  intercommunica- 
tion— going  to  and  fro — is  an  epoch.  When,  on  January  7, 
1891,  the  Emperor  William  II  wrote  to  Dr.  von  Stephan, 
Secretary  of  State  for  the  German  Imperial  Post-Office,  that 
* '  The  world  at  the  close  of  the  nineteenth  century  is  under  the 
sign  of  intercommunication,"  he  merely  expressed  a  common- 
place. It  is  satisfactory  to  note  the  assurance  with  which  he 
proceeds  to  say,  "This  intercommunication  breaks  down  the 
boundaries  separating  nations,  and  forms  new  connections  be- 
tween them."  It  would  not  have  been  difficult  to  perceive, 
arguing  from  these  premises,  that  all  military  preparations,  all 
excitation  of  jingo  passions,  and  all  suppression  of  methods  by 
which  nations  can  express  their  desires  could  do  nothing  but 
hinder  this  process  of  international  union  of  which  the  emperor 
clearly  had  at  least  a  premonition. 

§  170. — Speech  as  a  Means  of  Intercommunication 

Now,  the  movement  tending  to  develop  the  dynamic  relations 
between  man  and  man  has  certainly  never  come  to  a  stand- 
still. Language  was  the  first  means  of  communication  and 
mutual  understanding,  and  even  now  it  is  the  most  delicate 
intellectual  sediment  and  a  touchstone  of  culture  and  civiliza- 
tion.    True,  there  are  still  peoples  who  manage  with  a  few 


THE  WORLD  AS  AX  ORGANISM  4G7 

hundred  words,  but  the  vocabulary  of  a  Shakspere  runs  iulo 
tens  of  thousands  of  words.  Beyond  doubt  this  increased 
facility  of  expression  has  an  extraordinarily  refining  influence 
on  relations  between  man  and  man ;  or,  rather,  these  additions 
to  our  vocabulary  prove  that  such  relations  have  become  more 
intimate. 

Now,  it  may  certainly  be  objected  with  reason  that  this 
applies  only  to  the  individual  persons  of  one  nation,  that  is,  to 
people  all  speaking  the  same  language.  But  it  is  nevertheless 
a  fact  that  as  civilization  advances,  the  divergencies  of  lan- 
guage over  a  large  extent  of  territory  decrease.  In  America 
the  number  of  languages  is  greatest,^  for  none  of  the  small, 
itinerant  Indian  tribes  can  be  understood  by  a  neighbor  tribe. 
After  America  comes  Africa  and  Asia,  while  Europe,  which, 
like  China,  that  vast  aggregate  of  races,  has  long  been  in- 
habited by  civilized  peoples,  early  attained  comparative  unity 
of  language.  Thus  in  Europe  only  about  fifty  (that  is  five 
per  cent.)  of  the  thousand  odd  languages  in  the  world  are 
spoken.  This  is  partly  due  to  the  fact  that  wherever  civiliza- 
tion is  high,  and  consequently  there  is  a  great  deal  of  inter- 
communication, languages  mix,  becoming  enriched  in  the 
process,  and  thus  all  the  more  easily  supplant  the  poorer  and 
more  backward  languages.  England,  in  fact,  owes  the  rich- 
ness of  her  language,  and  perhaps  also  her  civilization,  to  the 
fact  of  almost  all  Teutonic  and  Romance  families  of  languages 
being  here  included  in  one  speech.  The  assimilation  of  for- 
eign words,  in  fact,  is  not  only  a  linguistic  gain,  but  likewise 
signifies  an  advance  in  civilization.  For  instance,  in  the  Mid- 
dle Ages,  when  the  German  language  borrowed  from  Latin 
and  Greek  the  words  Brief  (letter,  breve),  Tinie  (ink — ■ 
tingere),  schreihen  (write — scribere),  Kirche  (church — kyria- 
kon) ,    Pfarrer    (pastor — parochius),    and    Monch    (monk — 

1  Tn  Australia  the  same  conditiona  probably  prevailed,  but  bere  many 
langviages  have  partly  died  out,  together  with  the  natives  speakiug 
theoc 


468  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

monachus) ,  it  not  merely  enriched  itself  in  so  doing,  but  like- 
wise proved  that  the  Germans  had  learned  to  write  and  become 
Christians. 

Similarly  to-day.  The  craven  fears  of  the  language  purists 
not  only  impoverish  the  German  language,  and  make  it  less 
resisting,  but  also  show  that  the  purists  are  nowise  disposed  to 
accept  the  conse(iuences  of  technical  achievement  as  tending 
to  make  all  men  brothers.  The  fact  of  the  word  "telegraphy" 
being  international  merely  means  that  when  it  became  acclima- 
tized in  the  different  countries  it  was  everywhere  instinctively 
felt  that  telegraphy  was  a  means  of  bringing  nations  together 
not  merely  outwardly  in  their  bodies,  but  inwardly,  in  their 
souls.  And  to-day,  when  we  Germans  are  endeavoring  to 
supplant  the  word  "auto"  by  "Kraftwagen,"  in  itself  a 
felicitous  choice,  this  proves  that  we  to-day  have  ceased  to 
realize  how  much  such  modern  inventions  tend  to  unite  nations 
together.  The  question  of  foreign  words,  indeed,  is  not  merely 
a  question  of  taste,  but  a  moral  question.  It  betokens  ingrati- 
tude in  us  to  accept  the  foreign  invention  and  then  try  to 
find  a  German  name  for  it. 

At  the  outset  of  the  ]\Iiddle  Ages,  when  German  mercenaries 
used  to  go  about  the  world  sei'ving  foreign  nations,  they  took 
their  words  with  them,  and  even  now  in  France  numberless 
expressions  u.sed  in  war  are  of  German  origin  without  anybody 
taking  this  amiss.  The  lansquenet  is  the  German  LandsknecJit 
(mercenary),  and  the  Marechal  de  France  owes  his  name  to 
the  German  word  Mdkrenschalk^  meaning  a  man  who  holds 
some  one's  horse.  The  French  word  arquehuse^  is  the  Ger- 
man Hakenhdchse;  canon  is  the  German  Kanone,  and  flam- 
berge  ^  (.sword)  is  the  German  Flamberg ;  and  even  the  most 

1  Tlie  German  word  Miihre  now  about  corresponds  to  the  English  word 
"jade" — a  contemptuous,  old  fasliioned  word  for  a  horse. — Translator. 

■-  The  word  arquebuse  is  more  properly  harquebus,  and  meant  an 
early  form  of  firearm. — Translator. 

3  Plamberge  is  a  word  which  now  survives  only  in  certain  expres- 
sions, such  as  "tnettre  flamberge  mi  vent"  to  draw  one's  sword,  and 
"Flamberge   an   vent"   with   drawn   sword.     In   German    it  means   the 


THE  WORLD  AS  AN  ORGANISM  469 

modern  French  weapon,  fleches  (arrows,  airmen's  arrows)  is 
derived  from  the  German  word  Flit z- (hog en) }  It  is  not 
without  interest  that  the  word  for  war  in  all  modern  lan- 
guages {guerra,  guerre,  war)  is  not  derived  from  the  Latin 
helium,  but  from  the  German  word  Wehr  (defense). 

In  the  ease  of  an  unsophisticated  people  this  process  of  as- 
similation goes  on  almost  automatically.  The  new  product  or 
new  invention,  as  the  ease  may  be,  comes  together  with  the 
foreign  name,  and  at  the  same  time  civilization  is  enriched. 
Soon  everj'  one  is  quite  used  to  the  innovation,  and  it  is  not 
till  patriotism  has  been  artificially  inflated,  that,  aware  of  its 
own  innate  weakness,  it  seeks  for  external  indications  of  an 
internal  strength  of  the  absence  of  which  it  is  aware. 

Considering  what  powerful  arguments  may  be  urged  against 
any  dread  of  foreign  words,  other  arguments  for  them  simply 
do  not  count ;  such  an  argument,  for  instance,  as  that  the  use 
of  international  expressions  make  every  kind  of  travel  very 
much  easier.  In  any  case  the  outcry  against  foreign  terms 
that  arose  in  the  nineteenth  century  is  merely  the  expression  of 
the  artificial  barriers  put  in  the  way  of  all  efforts  to  promote 
whatever  tended  to  humanize  the  world.  But  besides  the 
effect  of  mixture  of  languages  in  civilized  countries,  however, 
we  must  not  forget  that  people  soon  learned  to  write  their 
language  here,  which  also  tends  to  lessen  diversity  of  lan- 
guages in  advanced  continents. 

Once  language  is,  so  to  speak,  fixed  hj  being  committed  to 
writing,  it  can  penetrate  further  than  the  human  voice,  for 
writing  is  also  one  of  the  technical  achievements  by  which  we 
have  overcome  the  cramping  effects  of  natural  compulsion. 
Not  only  does  the  written  word,  which  is  also  the  fixed  word, 
wander  all  around  the  globe,  whereas  the  spoken  word 
scarcely  penetrates  bej'ond  the  confines  of  the  speaker's  native 
valley;  Ijut  man,  liaving  once  learned  to  write,  achieves  the 

hroadi^word  of  a  knijilit,  and  is  still  used  poetically  to  mean  sword. — 
Tr:tnslator. 

1  The  word  FHt::hogen  now  means  a  bov'a  crossbow. — Translator. 


470  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

apparent  impossibility  of  making  the  fleeting  moment  lasting. 
Writing  united  mankind  beyond  the  bounds  to  which  the  indi- 
vidual human  tribes  wandered,  and  writing  likewise  joined 
race  to  race  for  all  time. 

§  171. — The  Results  of  Intercommunication 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  remind  the  reader  that  the  power 
of  the  written  word  to  cement  nations  together  did  not  become 
a  reality  until  the  introduction  of  modern  postal  arrange- 
ments in  the  nineteenth  century.  When  the  Greek  hemero- 
dromes,  the  tahellarii  of  the  Roman  Republic,  or  the  Withingen 
of  the  Order  of  German  Knights  had  to  carry  letters,  perhaps, 
at  a  rough  estimate,  about  100,000  crossed  the  frontier  of  the 
various  countries  in  the  year  throughout  the  world.  But  even 
had  it  been  a  million,  this  would  still  not  work  out  at  nearly 
as  much  as  one  letter  for  every  thousand  human  beings, 
whereas  at  present  in  Germany  alone  nearly  a  billion  (1,000,- 
000,000)  letters,  post-cards,  etc.,  go  through  the  post  annually; 
tliat  is,  about  fifteen  for  each  person  on  an  average.^ 

The  number  of  letters,  etc.,  has  increased  especially  during 
the  last  few  years.  About  forty  years  ago,  when  the  World 
Postal  Union  was  founded  in  those  countries  now  belonging 
to  this  association,  about  3,000,000,000  letters,  etc.,  were  posted 
annually,  whereas  even  in  1906  this  number  had  risen  to  35,- 
000,000,000,  and  before  war  broke  out  it  cannot  have  been  less 
than  50,000,000,000.  This  means  that  each  person  on  an 
average  probably  receives  something  through  the  post  every 
ten  days  (in  England  every  three  days). 

IMoreover,  letters  reach  their  destination  now  far  more 
quickly  than  formerly.  At  the  beginning  of  the  medieval 
period  a  letter  took  nearly  a  month  to  go  from  Germany  to 
Italy.     Now  it  takes  forty  hours ;  ^  and  the  invention  of  the 

1  Tlie  number  of  letters  going  through  the  post  in  the  United  King- 
dom in  1911  was  3.047,500,000.  Taking  the  population  of  Great  Britain 
and  Ireland  in  that  year  (45,216,065),  this  gives  an  average  per  year 
of  rather  over  67. — Translator. 

"i  This  is  true  despite  the  fact  that  in  certain  places,  even  compara* 


THE  WORLD  AS  AX  ORGANISM  471 

telegraph  means  that  for  the  written  word  distance  no  longer 
counts,  and  in  a  certain  sense  the  entire  world  (at  any  rate, 
the  entire  civilized  world)  is  already  reduced  to  a  single 
large  room,  in  which  it  is  possible  to  communicate  almost  as 
we  please  with  any  one  we  please,  or  very  soon  will  be  so 
reduced. 

It  is  a  fact  of  importance  that  words  travel  faster  than 
those  who  carry  them.  So  long  as  letters  had  to  be  sent,  a 
courier  was  necessary,  and  sometimes  a  great  deal  depended 
on  him.  Thus  when  a  sea-captain  used  to  sail  with  a  ship  to 
some  far  distant  part  of  the  world,  the  owner  of  his  ship  could 
not  get  at  him.  This  of  course  made  him  very  independent. 
No  one  at  home  could  know  how  circumstances  were  when  the 
captain  reached  his  destination;  consequently  the  latter  had 
generally  to  be  not  only  a  navigator,  but  also  a  merchant.  He 
accepted  new  cargoes,  and  sometimes  even  selected  his  route 
when  there  did  not  happen  to  be  any  agency  of  his  ship-owner 
on  the  spot.  In  such  circumstances  there  must  of  course  have 
been  a  great  deal  left  to  the  agents. 

Now,  however,  a  sea-captain,  on  reaching  his  destination, 
finds  telegraphic  instructions  awaiting  him.  He  has  become 
merel}'  an  employee ;  but  any  one  who  has  seen  with  what  a 
very  bad  grace  an  old  East  Indian  captain,  for  instance,  who 
was  proud  of  his  independence,  conforms  to  the  new  order  of 
things,  can  realize  that  here  is  a  case  of  the  telegraph  destroy- 
ing a  part  of  a  man's  own  personality  in  order  that  universal 
organization  may  be  promoted. 

Similarly  with  regard  to  a  country's  foreign  diplomatic 
representatives,  commercial  travelers,  commercial  agents  per- 
manently stationed  abroad,  and  also  superior  and  inferior  offi- 
cers of  the  army  and  navy  Whereas  formerly  they  could  not 
be  reached,  and  therefore  had  to  act  on  their  own  responsibil- 

tively  rivilized  places,  such  as  Siberia  or  Morocco,  the  post  still  crawls 
with  enail-like  slowness.  Even  in  some  parts  of  Germany  this  is  still 
the  case  'Ruis  the  post  in  East  Prussia  between  Johannisbnrjr  and 
Lotzen  (thirty-five  miles)  even  now  takes  almost  a  whole  day,  or 
seven   hours. 


472  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

ity,  now  they  are  in  telegraphic  communication  with  head- 
quarters, and  have  thus  gradually  degenerated  into  a  kind  of 
marionette.  No  disrespect  is  intended  to  them,  but  it  is  merely 
desired  to  prove  how  much  man's  self-will  is  diminished  by 
technical  science  in  order  that  the  world 's  total  output  may  be 
increased.  The  possibility  of  asking  for  more  detailed  instruc- 
tions of  course  relieves  the  person  of  responsibility,  and  con- 
sequently lessens  his  sense  of  responsibility. 

But  there  is  another  respect  in  which  modern  means  of 
communication  detracts  from  a  man's  individual  attributes, 
and  that  is  this.  They  cause  somewhat  the  same  sort  of  con- 
ditions to  prevail  everywhere.  The  Virginian  planter  and  the 
]\Iecklenburg  farmer  used  to  live  after  their  own  peculiar 
fashion,  and  hardly  knew  anything  of  the  outside  world.  But 
now  the  daily  paper,  letters,  and  travelers  connect  both  with 
the  world  in  general,  and  make  even  the  backwoodsman  some- 
what of  a  cosmopolitan.  This  may  be  regrettable,  but  cer- 
tainly cannot  be  helped. 

§  172. — The  Connection  Between  Intercommunication  and 
the  Greatness  of  Countries 

The  increased  speed  with  which  men  can  cover  space,  how- 
ever, cannot  fail  to  affect  a  country's  greatness  in  a  much  more 
direct  way.  Up  to  a  certain  point  this  has  assuredly  some- 
thing to  do  with  the  rapidity  of  its  means  of  communication. 
Experience  proves  that  the  only  countries  which  were  really  at 
all  vigorous  organisms  have  been  those  in  which  the  different 
component  parts  could  be  reached  in  at  most  a  few  days  from 
a  single  center.  Hence  it  is  possible  to  trace  some  connection 
between  the  greatness  of  countries  and  the  development  of  our 
means  of  intercommunication.  Let  us  consider  the  following 
figures : 

Miles 
In  one  day  a  traveler  in  the  backwoods  covers  about  I2V2 
"     "     "    the  ordinary  post  "  "  62 

"     "     "    a  mail-coach  "  ♦'         125 


THE  WORLD  AS  AN  ORGANISM 


473 


Miles 
In  one  day  a  railway  (about  1850)  covers  about     375 

"     "     "a  modern  railway  "  "       1250 

"     "     "    an   express   train   within   the 

limits  of  technical  possibilities  "  **       6250 

Here  we  have  a  scale  showing  how  man  has  slowly  advanced 
from  being  only  able  to  get  across  a  town  in  one  day  to  a 
speed  which  enabled  him  to  fly  across  the  quadrant  of  this 
planet  in  the  same  time. 


Modern  Empire 


in  1850 

^ 

— 

Fig.  10. 

Had  countries  increased  in  the  same  proportion,  then  their 
diameter  would  have  had  to  increase  in  the  proportion  of 
1  to  500 ;  that  is,  their  size  must  have  increased  25,000  times. 

Fig.  10  shows  this.  The  small  black  square  in  the  middle 
represents  the  empire  which  men  would  be  able  to  found  with- 
out any  assistance  from  technical  science.  The  square  striped 
with  black  indicates  the  size  of  a  countrj-  which  can  be  gov- 


474  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

erned  with  the  help  of  horses,  good  roads,  and  correspondingly 
good  postal  communications.  This  refers  to  the  whole  period 
up  to  the  Napoleonic  Wars.  Now,  however,  with  the  beginning 
of  modern  technical  science,  empires  might  have  expanded  ac- 
cordingly, and  we  might  have  expected  some  large  enough  to 
fill  up  the  big  white  square. 

Translating  these  reflections  into  actual  facts,  we  find  that  a 
mountain  valley  may  be  the  natural  limit  set  to  the  range  of 
power  of  a  barbarian,  technically  speaking,  that  is,  a  man  with 
no  means  of  locomotion  save  his  feet.  To  the  men  able  to 
travel  by  mail-coach  were  apportioned  countries  about  the  size 
of  those  which  arose  at  the  outset  of  the  JMiddle  Ages  and  still 
exist.  But  these  antiquated  miniature  countries  are  already 
far  too  small  for  the  present  time,  for  which  some  such  coun- 
tries are  appropriate,  as  have  already  been  formed  in  America, 
Australia,  South  Africa,  Russia,  etc.,  and  which  will  probably 
before  long  be  compulsorily  formed  in  F^lurope.  In  the  future, 
when  we  can  get  from  one  part  of  the  globe  to  any  other  in 
only  one  or  two  days,  the  world  can  and  will  be  one  homo- 
geneous state. 

It  is  useless  for  man  to  invoke  the  memory  of  his  beautiful 
old  traditions,  and  resist  with  all  his  might  such  inevitable 
evolution.  The  spirits  he  has  once  raised  will  never  depart 
from  him.  All  these  vast  means  of  intercommunication 
created  by  the  human  mind  during  the  last  hundred  years  are 
now  working  together  of  their  own  accord,  in  conformity  with 
laws  of  their  own,  and  forcing  reluctant  mankind  to  come  to- 
gether. This  homogeneity  of  organization  will  and  must  come, 
and  it  is  probably  needless  to  attempt  to  hasten  it,  for  we  must 
all  complete  the  circle  of  our  existence  in  accordance  with  laws 
rigid  and  eternal.  But  man  can  actually  achieve  the  impos- 
sible. He  can  understand  and  love  this  necessary  evolution, 
and  then  complete,  as  it  -were  of  his  own  free  will  and  creation, 
what  must  needs  come,  and  what  all  other  creatures  do  only 
in  obedience  to  iron  necessity. 

No   profounder  internT-etati^n   can  probably  be  given   to 


THE  WORLD  AS  AX  ORGANISM  475 

Socrates 's  saying  that  virtue  can  be  taught.  In  this  sense 
virtue  means  understanding  our  evolution  sufficiently  to  be 
able  to  anticipate  the  future,  and  from  this  anticipation  to 
forge  the  unbreakable  weapon  with  which  it  is  possible  to  make 
a  stand  alike  against  opinions  which  may  chance  to  prevail  for 
a  time  and  against  such  trivial  obstructions  and  hindrances  as 
war  and  pestilence. 

Thus  virtue  is  likewise  happiness,  and  it  is  only  the  Euro- 
pean to-day  who  can  possess  such  happy  virtue. 

§  173. — Premature  Attempts  to  Attain  a  Universal 
Monarchy 

If  we  adopt  these  ideas  as  our  own,  and  realize  that  the 
fusion  of  all  Europe  into  one  must  necessarily  result  from  our 
slowly  moving  evolution,  then  we  shall  also  perceive  that  it 
was  idle  to  broach  the  problem  of  universal  peace  and  a  uni- 
versal world  monarchy  at  a  time  when  conditions  were  not  yet 
ripe  for  such  conceptions.  This  is  nowise  derogatory  to  those 
dreams  of  the  future  which  the  best  men  have  always  dreamed. 
Such  men  were  geniuses,  precursors  of  a  future  which  they 
understood  by  intuition.  But  we  must  not  be  surprised  if  such 
projects  were  never  realized,  the  time  being  not  yet  ripe. 
After  all,  men  were  always  dreaming  of  and  anticipating  the 
day  when  they  would  be  able  to  fly,  but  this  dream  was  des- 
tined to  remain  unfulfilled  until  there  were  machines  weighing 
only  a  few  pounds  per  horse-power. 

The  Roman  Empire,  which,  after  being  reorganized  by 
Diocletian  and  Constantine,  was  in  reality  merely  a  federation 
of  comparatively  independent  provinces,  was  doomed  to  perish 
on  this  account.  It  has  been  urged  that  its  fall  was  due  to  its 
having  had  no  representative  constitution,  which  may  be  true. 
But  such  a  constitution  was  impossible  in  view  of  the  state  of 
technical  achievement  at  that  time,  and  hence  the  Roman 
Empire  was  bound  to  perish,  because  it  was  an  impossibility. 

The  conception  of  a  United  States  of  Europe,  however,  has 
never  quite  disappeared.     Apart  fT-om  the  fact  that  popes  and 


476  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

emperors  were  always  insisting  on  something  of  the  sort  on 
principle,  there  was  no  lack  of  direct  and  exceedingly  diverse 
attempts  made  to  bring  about  something  of  the  sort.  The  most 
important  of  these  attempts  are  set  forth  below : 

1095.  Pope  Urban  II.  at  the  Ecclesiastical  Council  of  Clermont, 
proclaimed  the  Arenga  dei  for  all  Christendom. 

1253.     Tliomas  Aquinas  published  his  "Summa  Theologiae." 

1300.  Dante  Alighieri  published  his  "Tractatus  de  Monarchia," 
first  printed  in  Basel  in  1559.  Republished  in  Vienna, 
by  Witte,  in  1874. 

130G.  Peter  Dubois'  "De  recuperations  terre  Sante,"  E.  H.  Meyer's 
"Die  Staats — und  volkerrechtliehen  Ideen  von  Peter  Du- 
bois" ("Peter  Dubois's  Ideas  on  National  and  Interna- 
tional Law"),  Marburg  dissertation,  1908. 

1466.  Georg  von  Podjebrad  proposed  an  Alliance  of  Christian 
princes,  the  first  proposal  for  a  federation.  Sewitzki's 
"Der  Europaische  Fiirstenbund"  ("The  Union  of  Euro- 
pean Princes"),  Georg  von  Podjebrad:  Marburg,  1907. 

1495.  The  Emperor  Maximilian  I,  at  the  Diet  of  Worms,  pro- 
claimed perpetual  public  peace. 

1600.  Sully  (1638)  in  his  "Economies  royales"  refers  to  a  project 
of  Henry  IV  and  Elisabeth  of  England  for  establishing 
a  Christian  European  monarchy.  M.  Kiikelhaus,  "Der 
Ursprung  des  Planes  von  Sully"  ("The  origin  of  Sully's 
Project")  :  Berlin,  1893. 

1677.  Leibnitz,  in  a  work  entitled  "De  jure  suprematus  ac  lega- 
tionis  principum  Germanie,"  proposed  a  European  con- 
federation. 

1713.  The  Abbe  Bernardin  de  Saint-Pierre  published  his  "Projet 
pour  rendre  la  pais  perpetuelle  en  Europe."  Drouet, 
"LAbbe  de  St.  Pien*e.  L'Homme  et  I'oeuvre":  Paris, 
1912. 

1789.  Jeremy  Bentham  published  his  "Plan  for  an  Universal  and 
Perpetual  Peace  on  Principles  of  International  Law." 

1795.  Kant  published  his  "Zum  ewigen  Frieden,  ein  Philosophischer 
Entwurf"  ("Perpetual  Peace"). 

In  long  past  times  it  was  hoped  to  govern  the  world  from 
one  single  center.     Thomas  Aquinas  wanted  it  to  be  ruled  by 


THE  WORLD  AS  AN  ORGANISM  477 

the  pope.  Dante  by  the  emperor,  and  Dubois  by  the  King  of 
France;  but  since  the  fifteenth  century  it  was  recognized  that 
this  could  not  be.  From  that  time  forth  all  proposals  have 
mentioned  only  a  confederation  of  states,  all  on  an  equal  foot- 
ing. Not  till  we  come  to  Napoleon  the  Great,  dazzled  and  led 
astray  by  the  ease  with  which  he  won  his  military  laurels,  do 
we  find  any  one  hoping  once  more  to  become  the  sole  ruler  of 
Europe  and  thus  to  unite  it.  More  recently  still — that  is,  after 
1870 — Germany  cherished  similar  aspirations,  although  she 
was  more  cautious  in  expressing  them,  alleging  that  she  merely 
wanted  to  organize  Europe.  But  the  shade  of  the  mighty 
Corsican  should  be  a  warning  to  us  all.  Europe  can  only  be 
freely  welded  together. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

The  Transformation  in  Human  Judgment 

1. — the  periodicity  op  opinions 
§  174. — Contradictory  Views 

Owing  to  mistaken  impartiality,  our  age  is  peculiarly  in- 
clined to  refrain  from  delivering  itself  of  clear  and  unambigu- 
ous judgments ;  but  it  is  significant  that  war  should  never  have 
been  discussed  from  one  point  of  view  and  one  only.  In  olden 
times  it  is  true  men  simply  accepted  facts  as  they  came,  and 
invented  a  formula  to  suit  the  occasion.  Thus  they  compro- 
mised with  war  because  it  was  discovered  to  have  beneficial 
effects  on  the  health  of  the  population.  It  seemed  a  bad  thing, 
but  it  also  seemed  a  thoroughly  effective  remedy  against  some- 
thing still  worse.^  It  was  looked  on  as  a  sort  of  blood-letting, 
so  as  to  get  rid  of  superfluous  strength,  as  a  tonic  preserving 
us  from  effeminacy,  or  a  stimulant  to  arouse  nations  from 
brooding  moodily  over  matters.  Every  one  held  such  opin- 
ions, but  as  it  was  known  that  all  good  medicines,  such  as 
quicksilver,  arsenic,  and  quinine,  are  also  poisons;  the  utmost 
divergency  of  opinion  consisted  in  the  fact  that  one  man  looked 
on  war  mainly  as  a  tonic  medicine  and  another  mainly  as  a 
poison.  Not  till  our  own  times  did  these  differences  of  opinion 
become  really  extreme,  and  some  people  begin  to  extol  war  for 
war's  sake,  while  others  were  peace-at-any-price  men. 

I  Even  a  modern  war  advocate  such  as  Karl  Braun,  the  Liberal  Ger- 
man deputy,  wlio  has  nothing  bnt  ridicule  for  tlie  pacific  aspirr^tions  of 
others,  nevertheless  says,  in  "Wahrend  des  Krieges"  ("Durinp;  the 
War,"  Dnnker:  Loipsic.  1871,  p.  17)  :  that  "war  is  a  di'^ease,"  and  hopes 
with  the  singular  and  incomprehensible  illogicalness  which  characterises 
all  war  advocates  that  "war  may  soon  lead  the  way  to  a  lasting  peace." 

478 


TRANSFORMATION  IN  HUMAN*  JUDGIVIENT      479 

How  confused  are  the  notions  on  which  both  sides  base  their 
opinions  is  obvious  from  the  fact  that  the  most  convinced 
advocates  of  one  set  of  views  are  just  those  who  most  fre- 
quently go  over  to  the  other  side.  Thus  Albert  Thomas, 
Jaures's  old  friend,  entered  the  French  Ministry  of  War,  and 
Gustave  Herve,  the  most  popular  of  all  anti-militarists,  sup- 
ports war  on  the  battle-field  zealously  and  sometimes  too  zeal- 
ously in  his  "Guerre  sociale, "  afterward  rechristened  "La 
Victoire."  The  British  pacifist  Frederic  Harrison  wrote  a 
letter  to  the  "Times"  advocating  new  dreadnoughts  being  con- 
structed with  the  utmost  possible  speed,  and  Ostwald.  once  the 
apostle  of  Esperanto  as  a  means  of  bringing  all  tlie  world  to- 
gether, is  now  crying  out  for  war  between  the  nations.  On 
the  other  hand,  generals,  when  getting  old,  have  very  often 
cursed  their  "damned  job." 

If  the  only  result  of  this  modern  cleavage  should  prove  to 
be  that  extremists  on  both  sides  were  further  apart  now  than 
ever,  then  there  would  be  a  good  basis  for  future  discussions ; 
but.  unfortunately,  the  overwhelming  majority  of  mankind 
praise  and  exalt  war  and  peace  in  the  same  breath.  Peace, 
they  say,  is  delightful,  but  all  honor  to  war.  And  certain 
aspects  of  war  are  praised,  such  as  the  awakening  desire  of 
men  to  sacrifice  themselves  for  a  great  cause,  which  is  described 
as  the  most  magnificent  aspect  of  man 's  character ;  while  other 
aspects,  such  as  the  inevitable  neglect  of  the  sciences,  are  de- 
plored, and  certain  wars — for  instance,  the  socalled  defensive 
wars — are  considered  necessary  and  good,  whereas  others  say 
that  offensive  warfare  is  the  greatest  disgrace  of  the  nineteenth 
century. 

Thus  it  could  happen  that  the  socialists  in  all  countries, 
though  in  theory  in  favor  of  peace,  were  as  much  in  favor  of 
the  war  as  any  one  else  when  it  actually  broke  out.  But  in  the 
case  of  the  socialists,  a.s  in  that  of  the  pro-war  intellectuals,  it 
might  be  urged  that  the  influence  of  others'  enthusiasm  for  the 
war  and  of  suggestion  counted  for  something;  and  for  this 
reason  we  must  never  forget  that  there  always  have  been  ex- 


480  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

tremists  who  have  endeavored  to  see  the  good  and  bad  side 
of  war  simultaneously. 

Thus  Napoleon  said,  *'I  love  this  business  of  war  and  I 
hate  it,"  and  a  hundred  years  afterward  the  German  poet 
Johannes  Schlaf  ^  said  the  same  thing  in  a  book  which  is, 
after  all,  nothing  but  a  lengthly  paraphrase  of  Napoleooi's 
brief  utterance,  which  to  tne  personally  is  unknown.  Schlaf, 
an  author  of  much  delicacy,  who,  despite  his  frequent  and  re- 
grettable lack  of  clearness,  has  often  shown  a  real  power  of 
interpreting  the  feelings  of  his  day,  writes  literally  that  "to 
condemn  war  is  to  blaspheme,  indeed  positively  to  outrage 
every  truly  religious  thought  and  feeling,  and  likewise  every 
human  entity  and  destinj''."  Here,  therefore,  is  one  who 
loves  war  and  holds  it  sacred,  but  who  also  hates  it,  for,  as  he 
says  in  so  many  words,  he  would  like  "to  prove  that  this 
•wicked  pacifist  blasphemy  is  based  on  reason  and  necessity." 

This  dual  view  of  war  was  expressed  by  a  man  of  such  iron 
nature  as  Napoleon  in  order  to  give  vent  to  his  subjective  senti- 
ments. But  it  seems  very  closely  akin  to  madness  in  the  ap- 
parently objective  dress  in  which  Schlaf  tries  to  clothe  it.  Yet 
not  one  of  us  is  wholly  free  from  this  inward  contradictoriness, 
and  the  chief  reason  for  my  quoting  Schlaf  is  to  show  in  what 
a  tight  corner  the  world  has  gradually  landed.  Like  Schlaf, 
we  instinctively  feel  that  war  is  something  fine  and  glorious, 
but  no  less  instinctively  that  it  is  something  horrible.  A  man 
of  action  such  as  Bonaparte  or  a  man  of  feeling  such  as  Schlaf 
set  these  two  sentiments  over  against  each  other  as  an  antithe- 
sis, but  a  man  of  science  studying  war  must  endeavor  to  arrive 
at  some  sort  of  explanation  as  to  why  these  two  diametrically 
opposite  points  of  view  about  war  should  exist. 

§  175. — The  Idea  of  Evolution  as  the  Solution  of  the 
Difficulty 

It  is  easy  enough  to  see  how  this  divergence  might  be  ex- 

1  "Der  Krieg"  ("War")  by  Johannes  Schlaf,  1907.  Marquardt  &  Co.: 
Berlin. 


TRANSFORMATION  IN  HUMAN  JUDGMENT      481 

plained.  There  is  hardly  anj-  occurrence  or  phenomenon 
about  which  we  need  always  be  of  the  same  mind  if  we  trace 
it  back  through  the  ages.  That  is,  no  evil  was  originally  an 
evil,  but  only  became  so.  Even  Bome,^  despite  his  having 
opposed  gilds  and  nobility  all  his  life  long,  believed  that 
originally  both  rendered  great  sei-vice.  Gilds  were  necessary 
organizations  to  oppose  the  once  too  powerful  landed  pro- 
prietors, while  the  nobilit}^  as  the  original  champions  of  intel- 
lect and  virtue  waged  war  upon  folly  and  low  ideals.  The 
fault,  he  urged,  lay  in  the  fact  that  gilds  and  the  privileges  of 
the  nobility  persist  even  now,  although  no  one  now  interferes 
with  the  occupations  of  citizens,  and  intellect  and  virtue  are 
not  the  monopoly  of  any  one  class. 

^lany  more  such  instances  of  things  originally  good,  but 
which  have  survived  their  purpose,  could  be  quoted,  and 
among  them  perhaps  we  might  include  war.  Like  everything 
which  has  life,  war  never  remains  at  rest,  but  is  always  de- 
veloping. Animals  did  not  wage  war,  but  human  beings  did, 
and  our  descendants,  the  "supermen,"  as  Goethe  and 
Nietzsche  call  them,  will  cease  to  do  so.  This,  at  any  rate,  is 
what  we  believe.  But  let  us  leave  the  future  to  take  care  of 
itself,  for,  after  all,  the  war  with  which  history  has  acquainted 
us  was  once  born.  It  was  young  and  now  is  old.  But  just 
as  the  love  of  a  maid  seems  lovely  to  us  and  that  of  an  old 
woman  repulsive,  even  so  is  it  with  war.  We  cannot  and  must 
not  judge  alike  two  things  which  from  their  very  nature  and 
meaning  are  wholly  different.  There  is  nothing  whatever  in 
common  between  Achilles's  eternal  "Song  of  Hate"  and  Lis- 
sauer's  "Hymn  of  Hate"  to  England,  and  similarly  there  is 
the  profoundest  difference  between  the  battles  in  the  Scaman- 
der  Valley  and  the  fighting  between  the  Meuse  and  the 
Moselle. 

Again,  universal  experience  shows  that  what  once  used  to 
be  necessary  and  a  matter  of  course  seems  as  beautiful  to  man 

1  "Nonvelles  lettres  provinciales,"  by  Ludwip  Borne  (Loeb  Baruch), 
1825.     In  his  Collected  Works,  'ind  ed.,  VII,  p.  45. 


482  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

owing  to  tradition.  Only  to  the  few  is  it  given  to  perceive 
the  beauty  of  what  is  to  come.  The  ideal  of  beauty  of  most 
of  us  is  the  retrospective  ideal  of  the  past.  Thus  we  can  ex- 
plain the  origin  of  the  Biblical  paradise  and  the  Golden  Age 
of  the  ancients,  as  well  as  the  fondness  of  Tacitus  and  Rousseau 
for  primitive  peoples.  Even  our  ideal  of  human  beauty  is 
that  of  the  Middle  Ages,  when  physical  strength  and  skill  were 
of  use,  wliereas  now  they  are  merely  "beautiful." 

As  regards  all  art,  indeed,  we  think  that  there  must  neces- 
sarily always  be  a  conflict  going  on  between  new  tendencies 
and  that  "classical  art"  on  which  every  one,  even  trained 
critics,  rightlA'  set  great  store.  In  fact,  we  never  learned  to 
esteem  the  different  artistic  periods  aright  until  we  began  to 
consider  them  historically;  that  is,  from  the  point  of  view  of 
their  place  in  the  scale  of  evolution. 

If  therefore  we  wish  rightly  to  appreciate  the  many  and 
wholly  contradictory  judgments  passed  on  war,  we  must  take 
into  consideration  the  fact  that  war  has  changed,  and  that, 
owing  to  tradition,  most  of  us  still  judge  it  particularly  from 
the  esthetic  point  of  view  as  it  deserved  to  be  judged  in  the 
preceding  epoch. 

§  176. — Love  of  War,  Ancient  and  Modern 

In  dealing  with  the  evolution  of  war  I  gave  the  reasons  why 
our  peaceful  primitive  forefathers  turned  into  warriors,  show- 
ing also  how  division  of  labor  gave  a  set-back  to  the  soldiers' 
profession  until  in  the  nineteenth  century  it  acquired  a  new 
lease  of  life.  As  we  do  not  know  what  primitive  man  thought 
about  war,  the  ensuing  period  naturally  divides  up  into  three : 

1. — The  archaic  period,  when  men  simply  accepted  war  as 
a  fact,  and  when  all  had  to  fight  as  a  matter  of  course.  This 
began  in  the  earliest  ages,  and  had  probably  come  to  an  end 
everywhere  before  a  single  nation  entered  upon  the  stage  of 
history. 

2. — The  period  of  civilization  and  cultivation  of  the  ground, 
which  was  comparatively  inclined  toward  peace,  when  only  a 


TRANSFORMATION  IN  HUMAN  JUDGMENT      483 

limited  number  of  professional  soldiers  used  to  bear  arms,  but 
otherwise  mankind  tried  to  engage  in  labor  tending  to  civil- 
ize and  cultivate. 

3. — The  period  of  sentimental  glorification  of  war,  the 
archaistic  period,  when,  owing  to  the  newly  created  ' '  people 's 
armies,"  all  men  again  became  warriors.  This  begins  with 
the  great  revolutionaiy  struggles  at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth 
century. 

However  peacefully  inclined  our  still  half-animal  primitive 
forefathers  may  have  been,  and  they  certainly  seem  to  have 
been  pacific,  nevertheless,  when  once  fratricide  had  occurred, 
a  latent,  but  universal,  state  of  war  must  have  prevailed.  At 
any  rate,  at  first  all  human  beings,  although  after  a  very 
short  time  men  only  were  forced  to  be  ever  ready  to  take  up 
arms.  Just  as  to-day  there  is  still  no  protection  for  the  rights 
of  individual  states,  so  at  that  time  there  was  none  for  the 
rights  of  the  individual  human  being.  As  is  the  case  with  the 
state  to-day,  so  it  was  the  case  with  the  indi\'idual  man  then : 
possession  was  nine  points  of  the  law,  and  he  might  at  any 
moment  be  forced  to  defend  his  rights  against  those  of  others, 
even  others  who  were  brutal,  overbearing,  or  crazy.  Indeed, 
there  being  no  sort  of  guaranty  for  any  one's  rights,  these 
could  not  be  defended  save  in  war. 

Thus  it  was  almost  inevitable  that  the  opinion  should  have 
arisen  that  war  is  the  natural  state,  and  as  primitive  people 
in  general  think  that  what  they  are  accustomed  to  do  is  right 
and  proper,  it  may  be  assumed  that  our  slightly  more  highly 
developed  forefathers  really  did  consider  a  state  of  war  lawful 
and  good.  No  such  opinion  has  come  down  to  us  in  written 
documents;  we  know  it  only  in  the  watered  down,  familiar 
version  that  war  is  something  natural,  and  that  we  have  al- 
ways had  war  with  us. 

This  view  is  a  wrong  one,  but  we  can  understand  it.  Even 
old  Heraclitus  believed  that  war  had  always  existed.  He 
called  it  the  father  of  all  things,  and  looked  on  it  as  the 
motive  force  that  kept  the  world  going.    But  just  as  primitive 


484  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

man  certainly  did  not  take  up  arms  save  under  compulsion, 
even  so  for  Heraclitus  war  was  only  a  means  to  an  end,  and 
the  end  of  the  world  seemed  to  him  to  be  peace.  Moreover,  he 
did  not  identify  his  "struggle"  with  war  and  its  bloodshed 
anj^  more  than  Nietzsche  did;  for  he  expressly  states  that 
' '  Man  can  cleanse  himself  neither  with  filth  from  filth  nor  with 
blood  from  bloodguiltiness. ' '  ^ 

Not  only  law  and  right,  however,  but  also  phrases,  are  in- 
herited and  transmitted  like  an  ineradicable  disease,  and 
Heraclitus 's  axiom,  taken  far  too  literally,  has  been  perpetu- 
ally repeated.  Although  he  was  the  one  solitary  instance  of  a 
philosopher  delighting  in  war, — if  even  he  really  did  do  so, — 
he  w^as  taken  as  a  paradigm.  Plato,-  it  is  tnie,  in  his  "Laws," 
makes  Kleinias  say  that  all  states  are  in  fact  perpetually  at 
war  with  all  others ;  but  he  adds  that  this  ought  not  to  be  so. 
Similar  statements  occur  also  in  the  subsequent  period.  Not 
till  man  had  grown  weary  of  endless  wars,  with  their  ever  in- 
creasing horrors,  did  Hobbes,-^  in  his  tractate  "De  Give" 
wrench  this  sentence  from  its  meaning  so  as  to  make  it  mean 
that  not  only  did  war  actually  subsist  between  all  human  be- 
ings, but  that  this  was  even  the  natural  state  of  things.  But 
even  Vorlander  *  pointed  out  that  this  very  phrase  is  only  an 
abstract  scientific  hypothesis,  and  is  not  to  be  considered  as 
historically  exact.  i\Ioreover,  he  of  course  insisted  on  the 
necessity  for  abolishing  this  so-called  natural  state. 

If  the  literature  of  the  world  is  searched  for  passages  glori- 
fying war,  astonishingly  little  will  be  found  up  to  the  nine- 
teenth century;  but  we  must  not  forget  that  love  of  war  was 
probably  universal  only  in  the  period  when  man  could  still  not 
write.     Thus  we  find  every^where  the  memory  of  legends  tell- 

1  Heraclitus,  "Fragmente  der  Vorsokratiker  von  Diels,"  1903,  page 
67,  No.  5. 

2  Plato's  "Laws,"  I,  2,  p.  625. 

sHobbes.  "De  Cive,"  I,  llf.,  and  "Leviathan,"  TI,  17. 

4  Vorlander,  in  the  "Allgemeine  Monatsschrift  fiir  Wissenschaft  und 
Litteratur,"  chiefly  quotes  the  passage  in  Hobbes's  "Leviathan,"  chap- 
ter 13. 


TRANSFORMATION  IN  HUMAN  JUDGMENT      485 

ing  how  gods  and  men  fought,  but  nowhere  is  it  stated  that 
such  combats  were  right  or  praiseworthy.  Perliaps  even  in 
hitcr  limes  there  were  occasional  cases  of  some  one  really  fond 
of  war,  but  it  would  seem  as  if  this  primitive  fondness  went 
liaiid  in  hand  with  a  primitive  dislike  of  writing.  Soldiers 
who  were  also  literarv'  men — for  instance.  Xenophon  and 
C;i'sar— have  never  loved  or  praised  war.  In  fact,  if  we  wish 
to  realize  how  these  hypothetical  primitive  human  beings,  our 
aricesfors.  thought,  we  must  go  l)ack  a  very  little  way  indeed, 
not  beyond  quite  modern  times. 


2. — THE   VOICE   OF    NATIONS 
(a)    SCIENCE   AND    ART 

§  m.—The  Antique 

When  once  division  of  labor  had  created  various  occupa- 
tions, the  world  began  to  perceive  that  the  farmer  could  dress 
his  fields  better  if  he  were  merely  a  farmer,  and  was  pro- 
tected in  his  peaceful  employment  by  the  "soldier."  Both 
were  thus  ecjual,  but  they  gradually  became  unequal,  because 
the  armed  man  of  necessity  got  the  power  into  his  own  hands, 
and  became  the  master.  Of  course  this  power  was  often  mis- 
used, the  defenders  of  the  country  and  its  food  producers  were 
•set  over  against  each  other,  and  thus  the  warrior  became  not 
exactly  beloved,  and  war  partook  of  his  unpopularity. 

This  jteriod,  which  includes  almost  the  whole  historical  time 
known  to  us,  must  on  prineij)le  be  divided  into  the  time  before 
and  Ihat  after  Christ.  Although  war  was  not  popular  even 
before  Christ,  iievertheless  it  was  accepted  as  a  necessity  of 
nature  :  and  not  till  the  doctrine  of  loving  thy  neighbor  as  thy- 
self was  announced  did  men  begin  consciously  to  make  war 
upon  war.  In  practice,  however,  no  such  division  of  time  can 
be  insisted  upon,  because  this  Christian  concept  had  already 
taken  root  in  many  persons  befoi-e  it  was  preached,  whei'eas 
after\\ard  it  seemed  to  produce  absolutely  no  effect  on  most 


486  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

Christian  people.  Religions,  in  short,  the  position  of  which  in 
regard  to  war  is  in  any  case  quite  exceptional,  must  be  con- 
sidered by  themselves. 

The  oldest  epic  poem,  the  Iliad,  is  certainly  a  war  epic,  full 
of  innocent  delight  in  the  heroic  deeds  of  the  heroes.  But 
there  is  not  a  single  passage  in  which  Homer  says  the  least  good 
of  war  as  war.  Indeed,  in  the  introductory  part,  he  says  by 
way  of  a  confession  of  faith : 

Achilles'  wrath,  to  Greece  the  direful  spring 
Of  woes  unnumber'd,  heavenly  goddess,  sing! 
That  wrath  which  hurls  to  Pluto's  gloomy  reign 
The  souls  of  mighty  chiefs  untimely  slain ; 
Whose  limbs  unburied  on  the  naked  shore, 
Devouring  dogs  and  hungry  vultures  tore.'^ 

And  in  Book  II,  when  Agamemnon  advised  the  soldiers  to 
return  home,  the  warlike  Achaians  ran  so  that 

their  trampling  feet 
Beat  the  loose  sands,  and  thicken  to  the  fleet.^ 

And  even  Ulysses,  who  calls  them  back,  is  not  angry  with  the 
Greeks  for  so  desiring  to  return  to  their  homes,  but  says : 

As  many  birds  as  by  the  snake  were  slain, 
So  many  years  the  toils  of  Greece  remain; 
But  wait  the  tenth,  for  Ilion's  fall  decreed.^ 

Elsewhere,  too,  the  only  epithets  which  Homer  applies  to 
war  show  him  to  have  had  the  profoundest  horror  of  it.  He 
calls  it  a  blood-stained  human  vampire,  and  speaks  of  a  war 
debauchee  who  did  not  even  care  for  whom  he  fought,  and  in 
the  Fifth  Book  of  the  "Iliad"  Zeus  says  that  he  would  have 
long  since  have  hurled  war  far  deeper  down  than  the  Titans 

1  Homer's  "Iliad,"  opening  lines  of  Pope's  translation  of  Book  I. 

2  "Iliad,"  Book  II,  Pope's  translation. 
« Ibid.,  Pope's  translation. 


TRANSFOmiATION  IN  HU^MAN  JUDGMENT      487 

had  not  Mars  chanced  to  be  his  own  son.^     Even  as  at  the  pres- 
ent day  the  kings  of  men  love  war  for  dynastic  reasons. 

Sprung  since  thou  art  from  Jove,  and  heavenly  born. 
Else  singed  with  lightning  hadst  thou  hence  been  thrown 
Where  chain'd  on  burning  rocks  the  Titans  groan.- 

Yet  even  considered  as  a  whole,  this  war  epic  is  not  warlike 
in  the  modern  sense.  True,  it  sings  of  war  being  brought  to  a 
close,  but  also  hints  at  its  being  overcome.  It  may,  indeed,  be 
said  to  contain  the  program  of  humanity.  Even  the  object  of 
the  Trojan  War  points  to  the  future,  for  it  was  waged  to  avenge 
a  violation  of  the  time-honored  human  right  of  hospitalit3% 
which  is  equivalent  to  citizenship  of  the  world.  (Compare 
Kant's  ''Perpetual  Peace.")  And  who  is  making  war?  All 
Hellas,  which  in  reality  was  so  torn  asunder.  Any  such  idea 
could  have  been  only  a  dream  of  the  future  for  Homer.  From 
Taygetos  and  from  Pindos  the  Hellenes  came  on  a  thousand 
ships  to  Troy.  The  tiny  states  of  Lacedaemon  and  Argos, 
^lessina  and  Athens,  were  at  one.  From  all  the  isles  did  they 
come,  from  Rhodes  and  Crete  and  all  the  Greek  colonies.  For 
Homer  this  was  the  world,  and  thus  it  is  that  the  war  which 
he  describes  for  us  is  one  which  the  world  has  as  yet  never 
witnessed — a  war  for  which  we,  too,  long,  as  the  war  of  the 
future,  the  only  possible  war,  one  waged  by  the  federation  of 
man  against  the  rebel  who  has  violated  the  law  of  nations. 

Homer  may  begin  with  the  maenads  of  Achilles,  but  from 
his  wrath  he  comes  to  Irene,  to  peace;  and  the  Homeric  chants 
end  in  the  words  of  Zeus,  in  the  last  lines  of  the  "Odyssey": 

None  now  the  kindred  of  the  unjust  shall  own; 
Forgot  the  slaughter'd  brother  and  the  son: 
Each  future  day  increase  of  wealth  shall  bring. 
And  o'er  the  past  oblivion  stretch  her  wing. 

1  "Iliad,"  Book  5,  at  the  very  end. 
-  Pope's  translation. 


488  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

Long  shall  Ulysses  in  his  empire  rest, 
His  people  blessing,  by  his  people  bless'd, 
Let  there  be  pea«e.^ 

But  "old  Homer"  has  done  yet  more.  Not  merely  did  he 
sing  of  a  far-off,  misty  future,  which  he  only  faintly  antici- 
pated, but  he  clearly  says  how  such  a  future  is  to  be  brought 
about.  In  the  lines  selected  as  the  motto  for  this  book  he  says 
that  fratricidal  warfare  on  earth  must  be  impossible. 

Between  Homer's  time  and  now  we  have  climbed  every  rung 
of  the  ladder.  First,  kinsfolk  realized  that  they  were  brethren, 
then  towns,  and  finally  states.  To-day  one  alliance  of  states 
is  already  opposed  to  another,  and  to-morrow  mankind,  united 
into  a  single  alliance,  will  look  on  every  war  as  a  "  war  between 
men  of  kindred  race,"  and  will  do  what  Homer  wanted — re- 
fuse law  and  help  and  protection  to  its  engenderer.  Herein 
lies  the  true  meaning  of  this  most  ancient  of  war  epics. 

Herodotus,  the  father  of  history,  also  writes  of  nothing  but 
wars  and  rumors  of  wars,  but  war  is  abhorrent  to  him,  "for 
there  can  hardly  be  any  one  so  devoid  of  all  reason  as  to  prefer 
war  to  peace;  for  in  peace  the  children  bury  the  fathers,  but 
in  war  the  fathers  bury  their  children."  And  being  wholly 
unable  to  account  for  such  things,  he  adds,  "But  probably 
some  demons  or  other  like  wars  to  occur." 

And  in  Herodotus 's  daj's  nations  in  general  thought  as  he 
did.  No  one  would  ever  have  dreamed  of  seeing  anything 
good  in  war.  It  is  significant  that  all  commentators  erro- 
neously derive  the  Latin  word  for  war  {helium)  from  hellus 
(beautiful),  explaining  that  this  was  meant  sarcastically,  and 
that  war  was  called  helium  because  it  was  not  beautiful.- 

War  seemed  to  every  one  a  scourge  of  humanity.     In  the 

1  Homer's  "Odyssey,"  Book  XXIV,  Pope's  translation. 

2(7.  Rabelais,  Prologue  to  Book  III  of  "Pantagruel :"  "Je  croia,  en 
effet,  que  la  guerre  est  dite  hcUe,  en  latin,  non  par  antiphrase.  ainsi 
que  le  croient  certains  rapetaaseurs  de  vieillcs  ferrailles  latines,  uiais 
parce  qu'en  guerre  apparalt  toute  esp&ce  de  bien  et  de  beau  et  que  toute 
laideur  et  tout  nial  y  sont  casch^s." 


TRANSFORMATION  IN  HUMAN  JUDGMENT      489 

Revelation  of  St.  John  the  Divine  the  four  riders  have  "power 
given  unto  them  over  the  fourth  part  of  the  earth,  to  kill  with 
sword  and  with  hunger  and  with  death  and  with  the  beasts  of 
the  earth,"  thus  representing  war,^  and  even  now  we  pray, 
"Give  peace  in  our  time,  0  Lord,"  and  "from  plague,  pesti- 
lence, and  famine.  Good  Lord,  deliver  us."  It  seemed  such  a 
matter  of  course  that  war  could  not  be  otherwise  than  bad  that 
as  a  rule  it  is  not  thought  worth  while  mentioning  the  fact. 
Not  even  the  bellicose  Romans  wrote  a  single  pcean  in  praise 
of  war ;  and  Horace,-  in  his  ode  to  ^Maecenas,  when  enumerating 
pleasures  which  to  him  do  not  seem  worthy  the  name,  but  in 
which  others  take  delight,  particularly  mentions  war.  But 
this  is  the  only  time  when  he  adds  any  epithet,  and  in  this  case 
the  epithet  is  "detestata" — "hateful" — war.  And  matters 
continued  thus  throughout  the  centuries,  for  as  to  medieval 
delight  in  war  very  many  people  have  an  altogether  wrong 
notion  about  that. 

For  instance,  Walter  von  der  Yogelweide,^  who  is  constantly 
singing  the  praises  of  the  knights  and  princes  of  Germany, 
extols  their  valor  and  good  breeding,  their  clemency  and  readi- 
ness to  make  peace,  their  constancy  and  diligence.  He  hopes 
that  it  may  be  granted  the  Emperor  Otto  *  to  be  just,  and  to 
Ludwig  of  Bavaria,  to  have  plenty  of  good  hunting ;  ^  he 

1  Revelation    6,    v.    1-8. — Translator. 

-  Horace,  "Carmen  ad  Cilnium  Ma-oenatem,"  v.  25.  Some  will  retort 
by  quoting  Horaee's  well  known  "Dulce  et  decorum  est  pro  patria 
mori,"  but  they  must  not  forget  to  quote  the  following  line  also: 
'"Mors  et  fugaeem  persequitur  virum,"  for  without  it  Horace's  real  mean- 
ing escapes  us,  which  is  that  "as  death  strikes  even  a  fugitive,  it  is 
always  better,  when  a  man  is  once  on  the  battle-field,  to  die  a  fine  and 
glorious  death  for  the  country  than  to  die  as  a  coward." 

"  \\  alter  von  der  V'ogelweide,  Simrock's  translation,  quoted  from 
Bard's  edition.     Berlin,  1900. 

4  Cf.  in  particular  "Gefiihrdetes  Geleit,"-  ("Escort  Imperiled"),  p. 
125;  "An  die  Fiirsten"  ("To  Princes"),  p.  147;  "Mass  und  Ubermass") 
("Moderation  and  Excess"),  p.  179;  "Vier  Tugenden"  ("Four  V'irtues"), 
p.  184;  and  "Die  drei  Stiihle"   ("Tlie  Three  Chairs"),  p.  189. 

''"Das  Fesclienk  L\id\vigs  von  Bayern"  ("Tlie  Gift  of  Ludwig  of  Ba- 
varia"), p.   140 


490  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

praises  Philip's  wisdom  and  clemency/  and  accounts  it  a 
virtue  in  the  Landgrave  Ilerrman  -  that  he  never  indulged  in 
caprice.  But  not  once  does  he  praise  a  prince  for  having  won 
a  war.  ]\Ioreover,  it  is  characteristic  that,  when  he  appeals  to 
men  to  join  the  ciiisades,  he  never  invokes  any  human  being, 
but  always  the  three  archangels,  Michael,  Gabriel,  and 
Raphael;  and  when  Leopold  returned  from  the  crusades  in 
1219,  though  he  certainly  extols  him,  it  is  for  having  kept  order 
and  returned  ' '  unsullied. ' '  ^  Only  once,  and  then  in  his  last 
poem,  "Heimkehr"  ("Home-coming"),  does  he  say  that  a 
wave  of  boundless  sorrow  has  come  upon  the  world,  and  now 
he,  too,  would  fain  seize  his  lance  and  with  it  win  a  heavenly 
crown.  But  this  is  resignation,  and  nowise  delight  in  war; 
for  he  knows  full  well  that  it  is  after  all  the  church's  duty 
to  be  at  peace,  and  that  the  conception  of  the  crusades  is  un- 
christian. Thus  in  his  poem  "Der  Klausner'"*  ("The 
Anchorite"),  he  says  that  the  reason  for  so  much  ruin  and 
desolation  is  that  the  church  itself  has  become  warlike.  . 

§  178. — More  Recent  Times 

That  no  one  should  have  had  a  good  word  to  say  of  war 
while  the  religious  wars  were  devastating  Europe  is  not  sur- 
prising. In  Friedrich  von  Logan's  "Epigrams,"^  for  in- 
stance, war  comes  off  so  badly  that  even  his  editor,  Lessing, 
assuredly  no  lover  of  war,  says  that  Logau  "may  perhaps  have 

i"Leitstern"  ("Guiding  Star"),  p.  137,  and  "Die  Milde"  ("Mercy"), 
p.  140. 

2  "An  Landgraf  Herrmann,"  p.   156. 

3  Walter  von  der  Vogelweide'a  "Leopolds  Riickkehr  vom  Kreuzzuge" 
("Leopold's  Return  from  the  Crusades,")   p.  1G7. 

4  Ibid.,  p.  190. 

5  "Epigrams"  ("Sinngediclite")  by  Friedrich  von  Logau,  1654.  Cf. 
Lessing's  rcA'iews  of  Logau,  which  contain  five  of  his  characteristic 
war  poems,  "Der  verfochtene  Krieg,"  "Des  Krieges  Raubsucht,"  "Krieg 
und  Hunger,"  "Eine  Heldentat,"  "Jupiter  und  Mars,"  ("War  and  its 
Champions,"  "Ravenous  War,"  "War  and  Starvation,"  an  "Act  of  Hero- 
ism," and  "Jupiter  and  Mars-"> 


TRANSFORMATION  IN  HUMAN  JUDGMENT      491 

exaggerated  the  evil  aspects  of  war."  The  German  novelist 
Grimmelshausen/  who  himself  took  part  in  the  Thirty  Years' 
War,  also  has  hardly  a  page  in  which  he  does  not  express  his 
horror  of  war,  the  irresistible  power  of  which  nevertheless 
seems  to  him  so  great  that  his  hero  can  see  nothing  for  it  but, 
like  his  father,  to  become  a  hermit.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is 
characteristic  that,  as  already  mentioned,  the  only  person  who 
asserts  that  war  is  something  natural,  though  not  precisely 
good  or  desirable,  should  be  an  Englishman — Hobbes.^  But 
Hobbes,  living  on  his  sea-girt  isle,  resembled  Englishmen  of  to- 
day in  the  fact  that  he  saw  comparatively  little  of  the  horrors 
of  war,  particularly  those  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War.  Hobbes, 
it  is  true,  lived  through  the  English  civil  wars  of  Cromwell's 
time,  although  the  devastation  wrought  by  them  must  have 
been  far  behind  that  wrought  by  contemporaneous  Continental 
wars,  if  only  because  they  were  civil  wars,  and  no  foreign 
armies  were  involved  in  them. 

IMoreover,  intercommunication  and  travel  were  increasing, 
and  confirming  men  in  the  belief  that  war  between  modern 
constitutional  states  was  not  merely  horrible,  but  foolish  and 
useless.  Even  Erasmus^  calls  war  "senseless,"  and  though 
his  contemporary  Luther  began  by  calling  cannon  ' '  damnable 
machines  and  works  of  the  devil,"  he  afterward,  as  in  so  many 
cases,  made  great  concessions  to  the  war  lust  of  the  age.* 
Suarez  ■'  explains  that  a  community  of  interests  and  civiliza- 
tion subsists  between  the  different  nations,  and  that  this  ought 

1  Hans  Jakob  Christoffel  von  Griramelsliausen  was  captured  by  the 
Hpssians  in  1G.'55,  and  probably  was  a  soldier  in  the  ranks  in  Ki.SS,  KUH, 
and  1G48.  His  "Simplicissimus,"  pub.  in  lOGO,  is  considered  the  first 
German  novel  of  permanent  value,  and  is  an  appalling  description  of 
the  misery  resulting  from  the  Thirty  Years'  War. — Translator. 

2  Hobbes,  "De  Give,"  1642,  I,  11. 

3  "Encomium  moriae,"  by  Erasmus.  Cf.  in  particular  "Mililis  Chris- 
tiani  Enchiridion"  and  "Charon." 

4  Cf.  §  1S8  and  189. 

B  Francisco  Suarez,  Spanish  Jesuit.  James  I  ordered  his  "Defensio 
Catholicae  Fidei  contra  Anglicanae  Sectae  Erores"  to  be  burned  by  the 
common  executioner. — Translator. 


492  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

to  be  furthered  bj-  community  of  legislation;  and  Hugo  Gro- 
tlus.^  in  his  famous  work  on  the  laws  of  war,  which  long  re- 
mained the  code  of  international  law,  made  the  tirst  attempt 
to  restrict  war.  Montesquieu  rem_arks  that  wars  in  his  day 
had  become  quite  different  from  those  of  the  ancients  as  re- 
gards their  effect  on  trade,  intercommunication,  and  civiliza- 
tion generally.  Holbach,  the  French  philosopher,  wrote  that 
war  did  not  even  spare  the  victor,  and  that  even  the  most  suc- 
cessfully waged  war  was  a  calamity.'- 

We  must  not  be  surprised,  therefore,  that  all  the  great  men 
of  this  period,  if  they  referred  to  war  at  all,  should  have  done 
so  with  the  greatest  contempt,  sparing  no  pains  to  flagellate  its 
useless  immorality,  cruelty,  and  barbarity.  Suffice  it  to  quote 
only  a  few  instances.  In  any  case,  it  does  not  seem  even  to 
have  entered  into  the  heads  of  most  writers  of  the  period  that 
there  was  any  need  to  allege  serious  reasons  for  opposing  war. 
They  agreed  with  Leibnitz,''  who  during  the  war  of  the  Spanish 
Succession,  in  which  his  country  was  involved,  wrote  to 
Foucher,  saying  that  "Philosophers  have  no  concern  with 
war,"  and  in  general  their  one  desire  was  to  keep  as  far  from 
the  battle-field  as  possible.  True,  they  did  not  all  express  this 
desire  with  the  Diogenes-like  simplicity  of  Gellert,*  who,  when 
he  ought  once  upon  a  time  to  have  sued  for  some  favor  from 
Frederick  II,  exclaimed,  "Fall  down  at  his  feet  and  recom- 
mend him  in  my  name  to  keep  the  peace,"  and  then  hastily  re- 
treated into  his  lecture-room. 

People  of  those  days  believed  that,  as  civilization  progressed, 
war  must  disappear  of  its  own  accord,  and  therefore  for  the 
most  part  contented  themselves  with  abusing  it.     Thus  Hume  ^ 

1  "De  jure  belli  et  pacis,"  by  Hugo  Grotiua,  1025. 

2  Quoted  according  to  N.  van  Suchtelen,  "Das  einige  Europa"  ("Eu- 
rope United"),  1915.  Published  by  the  Committee  for  the  United  States 
of  Europe   {der  europuische  Staatenhund) . 

3  Leibnitz,  "Philosophische  Schriften,"  Gerhardt,  Vol.  I,  p.  420. 
4Gellert's  "Letter  to  a  Noble  Damozel,"  1758.     Cf.  H.  Prohle,  "Fried- 
rich  der  Gosse  und  die  deutsche  Literatur":  Berlin,  1878. 

5  "Treatise  upon  Human  Nature,"  1738. 


TRANSFOmiATION  IN  HUMAN  JUDGMENT      493 

compares  two  nations  at  war  with  two  drunken  fellows  belabor- 
ing each  other  with  clubs  in  a  china  shop.  Quite  apart  from 
the  bruises,  which  would  keep  them  doctoring  themselves  for 
a  long  while  to  come,  they  would  also  have  to  pay  for  all  the 
damage  done. 

Pascal  ^  gives  it  as  his  opinion  that  ' '  theft,  incest,  infanti- 
cide, and  patricide  all  once  were  included  in  virtuous  actions, 
but  war  never;  for  can  there  really  be  anything  more  ridicu- 
lous than  that  a  man  should  have  a  right  to  kill  me  because  he 
lives  across  the  water  and  his  ruler  has  a  complaint  against 
mine,  although  I  have  nothing  whatever  against  him?"  On 
which  Voltaire  remarked  sarcastically  that  "ridiculous"  was 
not  the  right  word,  and  "infamous  madness'  was  much  nearer 
the  mark.^  Moreover,  this  friend  of  Frederick  the  Great  con- 
siders all  wars  began  only  that  men  might  be  enabled  to  steal,^ 
which  on  another  occasion  he  condensed  into  the  epigram  that 
the  first  king  was  a  successful  thief  {ini  heureux  voleur). 
Schopenhauer  went  one  better,*  and  asserted  that  "lust  of 
thieving"  was  the  origin  of  all  war.  And  even  the  "laughing 
philosopher"^  becomes  wholly  serious  when  the  word  war  is 
mentioned. 

"War,"  he  says,  "is  a  word  as  hea\'y  as  lead.  It  is  the 
scourge  of  humanity  and  of  nations,  the  antithesis  of  all  rea- 
son, although  not  seldom  a  harvest  for  the  great,  for  ministers, 
generals,  contractors,  and  Jews.  War  is  mankind's  obscene 
picture,  and  war  first  begot  despotism.  War  begot  the  feudal 
system.  War  made  of  free  men  the  first  slaves."  And  Klop- 
stock  says  in  one  of  his  poems  that  "war  is  the  most  hideous 

1  Pascal,  about  1650. 

2  Voltaire's  "De  la  paix  perpetuelle,"  about  1750. 

3  "Dans  toutes  los  jjuerres  il  ne  s'ag;it  que  de  voler."  to  which  Schopen- 
hauer adds  the  comment,  "And  let  the  Germans  take  warninpr  by  that." 

♦  Schopenhauer's  "Aphorismen  zur  Lebt-nsweisheit,"  ("Aphorisms  on 
the  Philosophy  of  T.ife,"  1850.  Chap.  V,  C,  29.  Cf.  also  "Parerg^a  und 
Paralipomena,"  II.  !•,  "Zur  Rechtslelire  und  Politik,"  ("On  Jurispru- 
dence and   Politics"),  §  125. 

5  Weber's  "Democritus,"  Vol.  X,  p.  216. 


494  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

laughing  stock  of  the  human  race. ' '  ^     Elsewhere  he  says  that 
Cerberus  had  three  jaws,  but  war  has  a  thousand. 

I  could  fill  thousands  of  pages  with  such  quotations.  But  it 
would  be  unfair  to  pass  over  in  silence  the  three  shining  lights 
of  German  humane  philosophy — Herder,  Kant,  and  Goethe. 
I  shall  have  to  refer  so  frequently  to  Goethe  afterward  that  I 
will  here  merely  remind  the  reader  of  the  fine  passage  in 
*'Egmont."  As  for  Herder,  he  says:  "Mere  endeavors  for 
the  betterment  of  mankind  can  scarcely  succeed  in  any  coun- 
try so  long  as  the  spirit  of  conquest  has  the  upper  hand  there, 
dominating  everything.  In  such  a  case  we  are  and  remain 
what  we  were  even  in  Tacitus 's  time — barbarians,  armed  for 
war  even  in  peace."  ^  All  noble-minded  human  beings,  he 
urges,  should  do  their  utmost  to  disseminate  such  views,  if 
only  because  they  are  human  beings.  Parents  should  do  their 
best  to  instil  them  into  their  children,  so  that  the  dread  word 
"war,"  so  lightly  uttered,  may  not  only  come  to  be  detested 
of  men,  but  that  in  time  we  may  scarce  dare  to  pronounce  or 
write  it,  save  with  the  horror  with  which  we  speak  of  St.  Vitus' 
dance,  pestilence,  starvation,  earthquakes,  or  the  Black  Death. 

Finally,  Kant  ^  writes:  "We  are  civilized  till  we  have  be- 
come a  burden  to  ourselves,  with  every  kind  of  social  refine- 
ment and  decency.  But  we  are  a  very  long  way  from  being  en- 
titled to  look  upon  ourselves  as  moralized.  For  ...  so  long 
as  governments  concentrate  all  their  strength  on  frivolous  de- 
signs for  forcibly  extending  their  power,  thus  continually  put- 
ting obstacles  in  the  way  of  the  slow  efforts  their  people  are" 
making  to  think  for  themselves,  so  long  need  nothing  of  the 
kind  be  expected. ' ' 

1  Klopstock,  about  1770. 

2  "Briefe  zur  Beforderung  der  Humanitiit  ("Letters  in  Advocacy  of 
Humanitarian  Ideas"). 

3  Kant's  "Idee  zu  einer  allegemeinen  Geschiclite  in  weltbiirgerlicher 
Absicht"  ("Outlines  of  Universal  History  from  the  Cosmopolitan 
Standpoint"),  Part  7,  pub.  in  1784.  Cf.  also  and  particularly  his 
"Perpetual  Peace,"  1795. 


TRANSFORMATION  IN  HUMAN  JUDGMENT      495 

§  179. — The  Transition  to  Modern  Times 

In  the  preceding  pages  I  have  cited  only  writers  fairly  gen- 
erally known,  and  whose  importance  is  beyond  dispute.  In  so 
doing,  however,  I  have  left  the  extensive  pacifist  literature 
properly  so  called  wholly  out  of  account.  It  is  from  no  lack 
of  deference  that  I  have  not  mentioned,  for  instance,  Alfred 
II.  Fried,  and  Professor  Wilhelm  Foerster  in  Germany,  the 
Baroness  Bertha  von  Suttner  in  Austria ;  Baron  d  'Estournelles 
de  Constant  and  M.  Jaures  in  France ;  Alfred  Nobel  in 
Sweden;  Andrew  Carnegie  in  America;  M.  Jean  de  Bloch ; 
above  all,  that  great  apostle  of  peace,  Tolstoy,  in  Russia ;  and 
very  many  more  besides.  We  all  honor  their  faith  and  ideal- 
ism, but  what  they  said  might  be  considered  preconceived 
opinions,  and  what  I  wanted  to  show  was  that  these  pacifist 
utterances  were  not  by  any  means  isolated,  but  that  in  general 
everything  that  hath  breath  and  understanding  is  in  agreement 
with  them. 

The  "Aktion"  is  shortly  to  publish  a  large  number  of  quo- 
tations in  proof  of  this,  although  these  will  by  no  means  ex- 
haust the  list,  which  would  fill  many  volumes.  I  will  merely 
refer  to  the  anthologies  of  pacifist  quotations  made  by  Leopold 
Katseher  ^  and  Alfred  Fried,-  which  contain  many  quotations 
from  authors  not  named  here,  unfortunately  almost  always 
without  an  exact  indication  of  the  source. 

A  great  many  quotations,  some  of  them  very  valuable,  have 
already  been  collected  and  published  in  the  "Aktion."^ 
They  are  from  a  great  diversity  of  writers,  including  Wil- 
liam Lloyd  Garrison,  Herder,  Swift,  Adin  Balu,  Charles 
Letourneau,    Channing,    Flammarion,    Alphonse    Karr,    and 

1  "Friedensstimmen,  eine  Authologie,"  ("Voices  of  Peace.  An  An- 
thology"), collected  by  Leopold  Katseher,  the  Hungarian  pacifist,  with 
an  introduction  by  K.  F.  Meyer  and  Bertha  von  Suttner.  Leipaic, 
1894.     .'3!l9  pp. 

•i  "'Handbnch  der  Friedensbewegung,"  ("Handbook  of  the  Peace 
Movement")   by  Alfred  Fried.  1911.     Leipsic  and  Berlin. 

3  "Die  Aktion,"  August  7,  1911.     No.  25. 


496  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

Emile  Rod,     Many  more  quotations  may  be  found  in  Tolstoy 's 
"Do  penance."  ^ 

1  should  also  refer  the  reader  to  the  quotations  given  by 
Dr.  Herman  Wetzel,  the  German  philosopher,  whose  book  can, 
unfortunately,  no  longer  be  bought.-  Then  there  are  of 
course  a  large  number  of  thinkers  and  authors  who  scarcely 
deal  directly  with  war,  but  whose  brief,  pithy  sayings,  torn 
from  their  context  are  made  use  of  by  war  advocates.  Here  I 
shall  confine  myself  to  mentioning  two  instances  only.  The 
German  writer  on  art,  Fredrich  Theodor  Vischer,  after  1870 
enlarged  his  work  on  esthetics  by  a  chapter  on  "War  and 
Art,"  lauding  war  to  the  skies;  and  Friedrich  Nietzsche,  the 
philosopher,  is  everywhere  instanced  as  having  incited  the 
world  to  the  present  war. 

True,  Vischer  said  after  1870  that  ''all  the  idealism  of  a 
Teutonic  existence  is  bound  up  with  war."  (Literally  he  said 
"lay"  in  war,  but  those  of  like  mind  with  him  are  right  in 
saying  that  the  context  shows  that  he  believes  his  assertion  to 
be  true  of  the  present.)  His  words,  therefore,  bring  grist  to 
the  mills  of  the  Germanophobes.  In  my  next  chapter,  how- 
ever, which  will  also  be  my  last,  he  will  not  be  quoted,  for  it 
deals  with  war-lovers  proper,  and  it  can  be  proved  that  this 
love  of  war  is  merely  an  overflow  from  the  feeling  everywhere 
engendered  by  the  Franco-Prussian  War.  When  Vischer  was 
in  the  prime  of  life,  and  aged  thirty-seven,  he  thought  differ- 
ently. Not  only  did  he  consider  the  "enormous  sums  swal- 
lowed up  by  standing  armies"  to  be  the  chief  evil  in  the 
state ;  ^  not  only  did  he  think  it  "not  lawful  to  speak"  of  the 
"triumphant  success  of  Becker's  'Rhine  Chant'  without  hlush- 

i"Besinnt  Euch"  ("Bethink  Yourselves"),  by  Leo  Tolstoy.  (Dealing 
with  the  Russo-Japanese  War. 

2  "Die  Verweigerung  des  Heeresdienstes  und  die  Verurteilung  de» 
Krieges  in  der  Geschichte  der  Menschheit"  ("The  Refusal  to  Serve  in 
the  Army"  and  the  "Condemnation  of  War  in  Human  History"),  by 
Dr.  H.  VVetzel;  Potsdam,  1905. 

3  Visoher's  "Kritisohe  Gauge"  ("Essays  in  Criticism"),  1844,  Vol. 
II,  p   293. 


TRANSFORMATION  IN  HUMAN  JUDGMENT      497 

ing  for  the  Germans";  ^  not  only  does  he  scoff  at  Herwegh  and 
his  hopes  of  making  everything  better  by  war,-  but  in  1844  in 
his  ' '  Proposals  for  an  Opera ' '  he  directly  states  that  his  reason 
for  proposing  the  Nibelungen  legends  as  the  words  of  an 
heroic  opera  ^  was  because  in  opera  it  is  not  necessary  to  prove 
that  the  characters  ever  actually  existed.  Nibelungen  operas, 
however,  he  says,  are  no  longer  possible  now,  because  the  pres- 
ent age  is  "incomparably  greater  than  the  remote  past."  In 
our  century,  when  Germany's  narrow  interests  have  extended 
so  as  to  embrace  the  whole  world,  the  Nibelungen  characters 
would  remind  us  too  much  of  the  "artificial  efforts  of  Teuto- 
mania, ' '  which  Vischer  hated  from  the  bottom  of  his  heart.  In 
short,  he  still  believed  then  that  in  the  two  thousand  years 
which  have  elapsed  since  the  origin  of  this  ancient  legend,  the 
German  people  "had  wrested  a  new  form  of  culture  from 
Northern  asperity." 

In  1870,  however,  when  Vischer  recanted,  he  thought  it  nec- 
essary expressly  to  state  that  we  were  still  in  the  midst  of  this 
' '  Northern  asperity ' '  and  that  the  warlike  ideal  still  continued 
to  be  the  German  ideal.  But  although  Vischer  will  not  hear  of 
historical  evolution,  yet  we,  in  criticizing  his  writings,  must  not 
forget  that  there  is  such  a  thing.  Considered  from  this  point 
of  view,  the  words  which  he  wrote  after  1870,  in  war-time  and 
when  he  was  growing  old,  acquire  a  wholly  different  meaning. 

And  now  to  come  to  Nietzsche.  He,  the  war  philosopher  par 
excellence,  was  never  warlike  at  all.  Victories  on  the  battle- 
field never  obscured  the  clearness  of  his  vision,  and  he  was 
perhaps  the  first  to  perceive  the  effect  which  such  unparalleled 
military  successes  must  have  upon  German  feeling,  the  more 
so  as  they  were  almost  uninterrupted,  quite  unaccustomed,  and 

1  Ibid,  p.  302.  (iS'/e  sollen  ihn  nicht  haben,  den  freien  deutchen 
Rhevn)  —  ("The  free  Rhine,  the  German  Rhine,  never  shall  they  have 
it"). 

2  Viacher'a  "Gedichte  eines  Lebendigen"  ("Poems  of  a  Living  Man"), 
"Jahrbiicher  der  Gegenwart,"  1843,  No.  1. 

s  Viseher'B  "V^orschlag  zu  einer  Oper,"  ("Proposals  for  an  Opera") 
in  his  "Essays  in  Criticism,"  IT,  p.  397  et  eeq. 


498  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

quite  unexpected.  His  prophetic  soul  saw  in  anticipation 
how  these  military  successes  would  change  the  heroic  sense  into 
a  militar}'  sense,  a  change  which  even  during  the  war  he  deeply- 
lamented.  Apart,  however,  from  its  special  aspects,  he  in- 
variably opposed  war  with  the  utmost  vigor ;  and  in  his  ' '  Ecce 
Homo"  he  specially  denies  that  by  necessary  struggle  he  had 
ever  meant  war.  He  does  indeed  advocate  war,  he  says,  but 
war  without  powder  and  smoke,  without  the  striking  of  mar- 
tial attitudes,  without  pathos,  and  without  sprained  limbs.^ 
His  war  is  the  war  which  Voltaire  waged,  the  war  of  free  minds 
against  false  idealism,  in  which  he,  like  the  German  philoso- 
pher Stirner,  included  first  and  foremost  ordinary  patriotism. 
Shortly  after  the  outbreak  of  war,  and  when  hypnotized 
by  it,  Frau  Foerster,^  it  is  true,  in  a  so-called  apology  for  her 
brother,  did  accuse  him  of  having  been  out  of  his  mind  when 
he  wrote  "Ecce  Homo."  Yet  this  same  Frau  Foerster  once 
on  a  time  declared  that  all  men  were  criminals  who  opposed 
her  brother's  philosophy  on  the  ground  of  his  having  lost  his 
reason  in  his  later  years.^  Fortunately,  however,  in  the  days 
when  there  was  as  yet  nothing  the  matter  with  him,  in  1886, 
Nietzsche  expressed  his  views  of  war  in  absolutely  unmistak- 
able terms;  and  any  one  wishing  to  know  what  this  supposed 
martial  philosopher  really  thought  about  war  need  only  read 
"War  as  a  IMedieine"  and  "How  to  Insure  True  Peace.""* 
Here  Nietzsche  says  that  war  is  of  no  use  except  for  sick 
peoples:  a  healthy  nation  does  not  need  war,  and,  secondly, 
that  a  nation  in  arms  (universal  service)  is  unhuman,  and 
worse  than  war,  and  that  he  hoped  one  day  a  nation  would 

1  "Ecce  Homo  Menscliliches,  allzumenschlches,"  Nietzsche's  "Col- 
lected Works."      (Vol.  XV,  2nd  set  of  German  edition.) 

2  "Der  'ecbt  preussische'  Freidrich  Nietzsche,"  by  Jilisabeth  Forster 
Nietzsche,  in  the  "Berliner  Tageblatt"  for  Sept.  16,  1914.  (Frau  Fors- 
ter-Nietzsche  wrote  a  life  of  her  brother,  translated  into  English  in 
1912).— Translator. 

3  Nietzsche  lost  his  reason  in   1889,  at  the  age  of  .3.5, — Translator. 

4  "Der  Wanderer  iind  sein  f^chatten,"  1886.  Nietzsche's  Works.  Vol. 
IJI  of  Series  I,  German  editions- 


TRANSFORMATION  IN  HUMAN  JUDGMENT      499 

arise  "which  would  voluntarily  exclaim,  "We  will  break  our 
sword  in  pieces"  and  which  would  raze  its  whole  militar}'  sys- 
tem to  the  ground,  and  "rather  perish  twice  over  than  make 
itself  hated  and  feared."  And  he  solemnly  adds  that  "this 
must  one  day  be  the  ruling  maxim  of  every  single  state." 

And  people  even  dare  to  drag  Nietzsche  into  their  po- 
lemics ! 

The  lying  spirit  has  grown  powerful  in  Germany,  and  ap- 
pears to  have  got  a  hold  of  every  one ;  otherwise  such  a  thing 
could  never  have  happened. 

§  180. — Soldiers  and  Diplomatists 

It  is  by  no  means  only  peace-loving  scholars  and  authors 
who  have  hated  war,  however.  Soldiers  have  done  so,  and 
among  them  often  even  the  greatest  generals,  strange  as  this 
may  seem  to  us  to-day. 

Of  "educated  soldiers"  of  comparatively  modern  times  we 
may  take  as  an  example  Cyrano  de  Bergerae,  probably  the  most 
bellicose  of  all  authors.  He  actually  killed  more  than  a  dozen 
men  in  duels,  and  served  with  distinction  between  1638  and 
1640,  first  in  the  Nobel  Guards  and  afterward  in  the  gendar- 
merie corps  of  Prince  Conti.  If  ever  there  were  a  man  who 
delighted  in  battle,  it  was  this  Gascon,  made  so  real  to  us  by 
Rostand.  Yet  he  hated  war,  saying  that  "all  beings  are  born 
to  associate  together,  but  man  will  not  have  it  so. "  ^  He  is 
forever  poking  fun  at  war.  "Does  not  each  side  say  it  is  in 
the  right?"  he  exclaims.  "And  if  they  believe  this,  then  why 
do  they  not  go  before  an  arbitrator  ? "  -  And  in  another  pass- 
age he  says  that  "  it  is  no  more  discreditable  to  lose  in  war  than 
at  dice,"  and  he  sets  far  more  store  by  a  victory  of  knowledge 
than  by  the  winning  of  any  battle  whatsoever.^  Cyrano,  in- 
deed, had  already  comprehended  the  great  aud  wise  modern 

1  "Histoire  romique  du  soleil,"  by  Cyrano  de  Bergerae,  IGGl.  Chap. 
IV,  p.  2.59.     "(Euvrea  Compl&tes":  Paris,  Mercure  de  France,  1908. 

2  Ibid.,  p.   176. 

3  Ibid.,  p.  178. 


500  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

conception  that  war  is  now  no  longer  a  suitable  form  of  human 
struggle,  and  he  condemns  war  "because  it  testiiies  to  human 
cowardice. ' ' 

From  Cyrano  de  Bergerac  to  Colonel  Hugo  von  Gizicky  and 
to  the  Saxon  Lieutenant-Colonel  Moritz  von  Egidy/  who  had 
the  courage  to  say  in  1890  that  ' '  war  is  incompatible  with  true 
Christianity,"  there  is  a  long  succession  of  men  whose  anti-war 
views  were  due  to  their  actual  experience  of  the  battle-field. 
Above  all  we  must  never  forget  that  Tolstoy,  the  greatest  gen- 
ius of  them  all  and  likewise  the  most  ardent  hater  of  war,  began 
his  career  as  an  officer  in  the  guards,  as  did  Prince  Peter  Kro- 
potkin,  that  other  great  Russian  pacifist.  In  the  same  category 
must  be  placed  Garibaldi,  who,  although  ever  ready  to  fight, 
nevertheless  said  that  the  first  thing  Europe  ought  to  do  was 
to  make  war  impossible.  Even  Frederick  II  of  Prussia  -  was 
of  this  way  of  thinking,  for  he  refers  to  war  as  "this  brazen- 
headed  monster,  the  War  Demon,  athirst  for  blood  and  for 
destruction,"  while  elsewhere  he  calls  Bellona  "that  woeful, 
wild  woman,  beloved  of  ancient  Chaos." 

That  these  and  similar  utterances  are  not  merely  the  exag- 
gerated phrases  of  an  eccentric  form  of  poetry  tending  to 
hyperbole,  and  that  the  philosopher  of  Sans  Souci  really  did 
often  feel  a  horror  of  the  mode  of  life  he  was  forced  to  live 
is  proved  by  his  insistence,  even  in  1749,  that  a  distijiction  must 
be  drawn  between  a  man's  situation  and  the  man  himself, 
"particularly  where  war  is  concerned."  True,  he  was  not 
quite  logical,  perhaps  could  not  have  been  so  because  of  his 
position.  He  does,  indeed,  insist  that  "we  must  not  satirize 
war,  but  get  rid  of  it,  as  a  doctor  gets  rid  of  fever" ;  but  very 
often,  as  for  instance  in  his  famous  letter  to  Voltaire,^  he 
merely  makes  gruesome  fun  of  himself.  "Do  not  imagine," 
he  writes,  "that  it  is  a  pleasure  to  go  on  leading  this  absurd 

1  "Zum  Aiisbau  der  ernsten  Gedanken,"  ( "Serious  Reflections  Made 
still  More  Serious")  by  Moritz  von  Egidy,  1891,  VIII,  p.  17. 

2  "L'ode  de  la  guerre"  and  other  passages  by  Frederick  II  of  Prussia. 

3  Frnderifk  II's  "Letter  to  Voltaire,"  Nov.  27,   1773.    . 


I 


TRANSFORMATION  IN  HUMAN  JUDGMENT      501 

life.     Seeing  men  one  does  not  know  dying  all  round  one,  and 
even  handing  them  over  to  Death. ' ' 
He  then  goes  on : 

Can  any  prmce  who  clothes  his  men  in  blue  cloth,  gives  them  hats 
■with  white  strings,  and  orders  them  to  right  about  and  then  to  left 
about,  make  them  go  tlirough  a  campaign  for  honor's  sake  without 
desen'ing  the  honorary  title  of  an  instigator  of  good-for-notliings 
who  only  become  hired  executioners  from  dire  necessity,  so  as  to 
fulfil  the  honorable  calling  of  highway-robbers?  The  philosophers 
must  send  out  missionaries  to  convert  people,  and  to  rid  the  coun- 
tries of  their  great  armies,  without  this  being  noticed.  These  armies 
are  hurling  the  countries  downward  into  the  abyss;  they  must  be 
reduced  until  gradually  not  a  single  fighting  man  is  left.  No  lord 
of  the  soil  and  no  people  will  any  longer  have  any  such  luckless 
passion  as  that  for  making  war,  the  consequences  of  which  are  so 
disastrous.  Every  one  will  utter  only  reason,  things  as  demonstrable 
as  a  proposition  in  Euclid.  I  deeply  regret  that  I  am  too  old  to 
hope  to  witness  so  fine  a  sight;  indeed,  I  shall  scarcely  live  to  see 
the  first  blush  of  the  dawn  of  that  day.  I  and  my  contemporaries 
will  be  pitied  for  having  lived  in  an  age  of  darkness,  at  the  end  of 
which,  but  not  before,  the  first  streaks  of  light  were  seen  breaking 
unto  the  perfect  day  of  wisdom.^ 

Is  it  possible  to  be  theoretically  a  more  convinced  pacifist 
than  this  great  military  sovereign,  even  altliough  he  declined  to 
believe  in  the  peace  organization  proposed  by  the  Abbe  de 
Saint  Pierre?  - 

That  other  crushing  remark  of  the  great  king,  "If  my  sol- 
diers began  to  think,  not  one  would  stay  in  the  ranks,"  is  cer- 
tainly famous;  but  no  one  has  ever  tried  to  put  it  into  prac- 
tice. Or  have  the  nations  never  yet  begun  to  think  in  the  sense 
meant  by  Frederick  the  Great? 

Not  even  Napoleon,  who  is  called  the  Soldier  Emperor,  who 
was  a  soldier  by  profession,   and  who  unquestionably  oweu 

I  Frederick  IT,  "Einige  Gedanken  Friediioh  TI  aus  Herders  Briefen 
TUT  Btfiirdcninij  der  Ilumanitat."  ("Scinie  UellcL-tions  of  Frederick 
11    from    Herder's    Letters    in    "Advocacy   of   Humanitarian    Ideas") 

^  Kiederick.  11,    •Toteagesprache"   ("Conversations  with  the  Dead"). 


502  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

everything  to  war,  saw  anything  necessarily  great  about  war. 
Even  when  still  a  young  officer  he  complained  that  he  had 
missed  his  vocation,  an  idea  which  never  quite  left  him.  I 
have  already  quoted  his  saying  that  "he  hated  this  business 
and  he  loved  it " ;  and  although  he  waged  more  wars  and  won 
more  victories  on  the  battle-field  than  any  other  mortal,  he  over 
and  over  again  showed  that  for  him  war — this  barbarous  busi- 
ness, as  he  calls  it — was  at  best  a  means  to  an  end,  never  an 
end  in  itself.  He  considered  it  his  mission  "to  establish  civil 
order  on  a  firm  footing,  side  by  side  with  the  military  and 
ecclesiastical  power  which,  until  his  time,  alone  prevailed"; 
and  when  he  founded  the  Legion  of  Honor,  the  first  order  for 
all  classes  of  the  people,  he  said  that  "time  was  getting  on,  and 
soon  the  greatest  general  would  feel  honored  by  being  per- 
mitted to  wear  the  same  order  as  a  scholar  and  an  author.'* 
Indeed,  he  even  thought  seriously  of  abolishing  the  profes- 
sional soldier  and  introducing  a  militia.  "In  peace-time,"  he 
said,  "I  will  manage  to  induce  the  sovereigns  not  to  have  any 
soldiers  except  their  own  guard." 

Even  his  enemy,  the  Austrian  Field-Marshal  the  Archduke 
Charles,^  the  only  man  who  in  those  topsy-turvy  times  con- 
quered the  revolutionary  armies  and  once  even  Napoleon  him- 
self, at  Aspern  and  Essling,  this  only  general  of  the  Germans 
of  that  day,  expressly  states  that  "unduly  large  armies  are  a 
curse  to  humanity,  and  cause  the  ruin  of  countries," 

It  is  narrated  of  James  "Wolfe,-  the  stubborn  and  apparently 
cruel  conqueror  of  Quebec,  that  on  his  death-bed  he  was  read- 
ing a  poem  by  Gray  ("The  Elegy  in  a  Country  Churchyard"), 
and  said,  "I  had  rather  have  written  such  lines  than  have 
conquered  Quebec";  and  even  Bismarck,  a  contemporary  of 
Moltke  and  in  one  sense  his  colleague,  said,  before  beginniiig 
his  third  war,^  that  "he  considered  even  a  victorious  war  al- 

1  "Aphorisms,"  by  the  Archduke  Charles,  1816. 

2  Wolfe.  Cf.  R.  Wright's  "Life  and  Correspondence  of  Major  General 
James  Wolfe,"   18G4. 

a  Bismarck's    "Rundschreiben    an    die    diplomatischen    Vertreter    de," 


TRANSFORMATION  IN  HUMAN  JUDGMENT      503 

ways  an  evil  in  itself,  and  one  which  statesmanship  ought  to 
endeavor  to  spare  the  nations."  And  when  he  had  brought 
his  wars  to  a  victorious  conclusion,  he,  so  to  speak,  apologizes 
for  them,  saying  that  ' '  the  last  two  wars  were  an  unavoidable 
historical  event  come  down  to  us  from  past  centuries."  ^ 

It  is  perhaps  also  worth  while  mentioning  that  the  Crown 
Prince  Frederick  William,  even  during  the  Franco-Prussian 
War,  in  which  he  gave  an  excellent  account  of  himself  both  as 
soldier  and  strategist,  expressed  his  "horror  of  war,"  and 
once  actually  said,  "We  really  must  feel  ashamed  ever  to  look 
at  barbarians,  because  they  do  neither  more  nor  less  than  what 
we  do."  He  was  truly  of  the  same  mind  as  his  great  ancestor 
Frederick  II,  to  whom  he  is  well  known  to  have  been  greatly 
attached. 

What  I  have  done  here  is  to  collect  the  pacifist  sayings  of 
the  very  men  from  whom  such  utterances  might  not  have  been 
expected  to  proceed.  It  would  be  superfluous  to  add  to  the 
list.  Every  one  knows  that  all  the  great  British  ministers  con- 
demned war.  Whigs  and  Tories  agreed  in  this.  A  Liberal 
such  as  Gladstone  described  militarism  as  the  greatest  tyrant 
of  our  age.  and  a  Conservative  such  as  Lord  Salisbury  believed 
that  the  triumph  of  civilization  lay  in  the  overcoming  of  war. 
Even  Crispi  said  that  rone  but  fools  or  ambitious  men  desire 
war. 

It  may  be  objected  that  the  history  of  nations  proves  this  to 
have  been  mere  hypocrisy,  for,  after  all,  they  have  almost  all 
waged  wars,  from  Frederick  the  Great's  to  Lord  Salisbury's 
wars.  But  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  modern  militarism  is 
based  not  on  the  fact  of  wars  being  waged,  but  on  the  convic- 
tion of  there  being  something  great  about  war,  something 
which  is  cause  for  rejoicing,  and  for  which  preparation  must 
I  e  made.     It  is  this  conviction  which  must  be  opposed,  and 

no/rlfloutschcn  Bundes"  (Circular  to  the  Diplomatic  Represenlatives  of 
the  North  German  Association),  July  9,  1870. 

1  Bismarck's  speech  in  the  Reichstag  of  Jan.  11,  1887. 


504  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

Avheii  men's  views  have  changed,  then  a  new  set  of  facts  will 
arise  of  their  own  accord. 

But  I  have  given  instances  enough.  Ever}'  one  who  studies 
literature  even  superficially  will  admit  that  there  has  never 
yet  been  any  man  of  eminence  who  has  loved  war  for  war's 
sake.  Subsequently  (§  187)  I  hope  to  mention  the  modern 
men  Avho  do  so,  among  whom,  however,  is  only  one,  Moltke, 
whose  achievements  entitle  him  to  claim  to  be  numbered  among 
the  great ;  and  even  ]\Ioltke  was  induced,  from  practical  consid- 
erations, one  day  to  declare  that  the  cessation  of  war  was  some- 
thing worth  striving  for. 

3. — WAR   rOETRT 

§  181. — Dramatic  War  Poetry 

It  might  be  thought  that  the  quotations  hitherto  given  were 
specially  and  not  fairly  selected.  Anything  so  horrible  as  M^ar, 
it  might  be  argued,  must  have  opponents,  but  certainly  sup- 
porters also.  Let  those  w^ho  think  so  test  things  for  themselves, 
however,  and  they  will  find  it  is  quite  true  that  until  the 
French  Revolution,  and  indeed  even  until  the  middle  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  there  were  never  any  genuine  friends  of 
war.  True,  the  oldest  epic  poems  are  war  poems,  but  desppite 
there  being  such  an  immense  deal  about  battles  in  the  Iliad  and 
the  Nibelungenlied,  in  Firdusi  and  the  Bible,  and  in  Greek  and 
Roman  mythology,  not  a  single  one  of  all  these  contains  the 
slightest  trace  of  enthusiasm  for  war.  As  regards  the  Iliad  I 
have  already  gone  into»this  in  detail ;  but  the  tendency  of  even 
the  German  national  epic,  the  Nibelungenlied,  is  in  reaRty 
against  war,  and  when  at  last  the  Germans  have  torn  one  an- 
other to  pieces  (Burgundians  against  Bernese)  to  the  last  man, 
and  Theodorie  alone  remains,  there  can  hardly  be  any  one  who 
does  not  feel  the  wearisome  folly  of  war. 

No  doubt  many  poets  afterward  succeeded  in  giving  fine 
descriptions  of  battles,  such  as  the  account  of  the  battle  of 
Waterloo  in  Victor  Hugo's  "Les  Miserables"  or  Tolstoy's  de- 


TRANSFORMATION  IN  HU^AIAN  JUDGMENT      505 

scriptiou  of  battle  in  "War  and  Peace."  But  it  is  just  in 
books  with  a  peaceful  tendency  written  by  men  of  peace  that 
we  find  these  vivid  descriptions.  What  a  gulf  really  separates 
poets  and  soldiers  can  best  be  realized  from  the  fact  that  a 
poet  or  dramatist  has  never  yet  succeeded  in  a  drama  the  cen- 
tral figure  of  which  was  a  soldier  or  the  plot  of  which  was  a 
battle.  The  Napoleonic  tragedy  has  never  been  made  the  sub- 
ject of  a  successful  pla}^  or  poem,  and  only  quite  lately  has  an 
attempt  been  made  to  use  Napoleon  in  private  life  {Napoleon 
intime)  as  material  for  comedies.  Nor  is  there  any  drama  of 
Frederick  the  Great;  in  Lessing's  "Minna  von  Barnhelm"  he 
merely  forms  a  background.  Similarly  Schiller  preceded  his 
Wallenstein  trilogy  by  "Wallenstein's  Camp,"  which  is  des- 
tined to  throw  into  relief  Wallenstein's  human  side,  and,  as 
Schiller  quite  properly  adds,  explain  his  inhumanity.  Even 
in  olden  times  it  was  just  the  same,  and  the  ' '  Seven  Men  be- 
fore Thebes"  is  not  a  war  drama. 

This  neglect  of  wholesale  slaughter  might  seem  surprising, 
because,  after  all,  murder  and  assassination  have  been  frequent 
themes  in  all  tragedies  since  Grecian  times.  The  reason  for  it, 
however,  is  simply  the  endless  uniformity  of  all  battles  ever 
fought  as  yet.  If  a  private  person  strikes  another  dead,  he 
has  some  sort  of  reason  for  so  doing  which  may  possibly  in- 
terest a  poet ;  but  if  a  soldier  strikes  any  one  dead  in  battle,  he 
has  no  reason  whatever  for  so  doing,  and  it  would  really  be 
hard  to  say  what  a  poet  or  dramatist  would  make  of  such  an 
incident.  Battles,  indeed,  are  not  merely  superfluous,  but  also 
deadly  dull,  and  deadly  dull  they  remain  even  when  drama- 
tized, and,  be  it  remarked  in  parenthesis,  when  thej^  are  painted 
on  canvas. 

But  beyond  all  doubt  there  are  fine  war-songs,  by  which  we 
rightly  set  much  store,  and  many  poetical  lines  glorifying  war. 
But  the  circumstances  in  this  case  are  peculiar.  The  poet  be- 
lieves, or  did  once  believe,  it  to  be  his  duty  to  put  himself  in 
the  shoes  of  as  many  different  people  in  as  many  different  cir- 
cumstances as  possible.     For  instance,  Schiller  is  particularly 


506  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

praised  for  having  been  able  to  pen  his  masterly  description 
of  the  Alps  in  "William  Tell"  without  ever  having  been  in 
Switzerland ;  and  similarly  he  did  his  best  to  feel  as  his  charac- 
ters would  have  felt  and  speak  as  they  would  have  spoken 
without  himself  really  sharing  their  feelings. 

Schiller  wrote  "Nadowessiers  Totenlied"  and  die  "Kind- 
moderin"  (the  " Child-Murderess"),  and  yet  he  was  neither 
an  Indian  nor  a  child-murderer.  In  like  manner  he  thor- 
oughly appreciated  the  soldier's  free  and  easy  life,  and  he  it 
was  who  wrote  what  is  perhaps  the  most  splendid  cavalry  song 
in  the  world.     The  lines 

Und  setzet  Ihr  nicht  das  Leben  ein 

Nie  Avird  Euch  das  Leben  gewonnen  sein,^ 

and 

Der  dem  Tod  ins  Angesiclit  sciiauen  kann; 
Der  Soldat  allein  ist  der  freie  Mann,^ 

contain  the  highest  moral  tribute  which  it  is  possible  to  pay  to 
war.  Yet  it  would  be  a  mistake  to  insist  that  Schiller  had  any 
trace  of  enthusiasm  for  war  in  him.  He  knew  only  too  well 
that,  as  he  says  in  "Max  Piccolomiui,"  "war  is  a  cruel,  brutal 
business,"  and  he  also  knew  that  "war  carries  off  the  best,"  as 
he  says  in  ' '  Siegesf est. ' ' 

War  is  so  far  from  appealing  to  Schiller's  finely  sensitive 
personality  that,  perhaps  unintentionally,  he  often  does  not 
even  refer  to  it  when  he  might  have  been  expected  to  do  so. 
In  his  "Song  of  the  Bell,"  in  which  the  whole  of  life,  and  even 
the  Revolution,  is  made  to  pass  before  us,  there  is  no  descrip- 
tion of  war;  there  is  merely  a  negative  reference  to  it: 
{"Moge  nie  der  Tag  erscheinen,"  etc. — "May  the  day  never 
dawn").     In  the  "Eleusian  Festival"  the  savages  come  and 

1  That  he  who  doj-fe  no+  stake  his  life  shall  never  have  it  won  from 
him. — Translator. 

1!  That  tlie  soldier  alone  looks  death  ir  the  face;  the  soldier  alone  la 
a  free  man. — Translator. 


TRANSFOR.AIATTON  IN  HUMAN  JUDGMENT      507 

"cast  their  blood-stained  weapons  from  them";  and  even 
though  he  says  that  all  the  heavenly  beings  descend,  ^Mars,  the 
god  of  war,  is  not  among  them.  Similarly  the  war  gods  are 
not  in  the  "Gods  of  Greece,"  although  thirty  deities  are 
named,  and  although,  as  is  well  known,  IMars  was  one  of  the 
twelve  chief  gods.  (In  the  second  edition  he  even  omitted 
Zeus,  the  "Thunderer,"  because  this  epithet  seemed  to  him  to 
sully  the  "hellenic  harmony.")  Finally,  in  the  "division  of 
the  earth,"  in  which,  according  to  prevailing  opinion,  the  sol- 
dier would  have  the  chief  share,  only  the  peasant  and  mer- 
chant, junker,  abbot,  and  king,  but  not  the  man  of  war,  are 
mentioned;  and  in  the  poem  "Johanniter"  Schiller  expressly 
says  the  watchman's  garb  adorns  a  knight  better  than  a  coat 
of  mail.  But  in  principle  the  passage  already  cited  is  most 
important.  Here  Schiller  expressly  extols  the  German  for  not 
prancing  about  like  a  Frank  or  a  Briton,  after  the  manner  of  a 
proud  conqueror.  Only  once,  in  the  poem  ^  "Wilhelm  Tell" 
does  he  admit  justification  for  a  just  war ;  but  this  war  of  the 
Swiss  was  not  a  war  at  all  in  our  sense  of  the  word,  but  a  revo- 
lution against  a  legitimate  ruler,  and,  as  we  shall  see,  revolu- 
tions are  not  at  all  the  same  thing  as  wars.  In  any  case,  at 
that  time  they  were  put  on  quite  a  ditferent  footing,  and  a 
typical  instance  of  which  is  the  fact  that  Kant,  although  in 

1  In  his  dramas  "Wilhelm  Tell,"  "The  Maid  of  Orleans,"  etc.,  Schiller 
of  course  allows  certain  characters  to  praise  war.  Tlius  in  the  "Bride 
of  Messina,"  in  accordance  with  the  impersonal  nature  of  the  antique 
chorus,  he  makes  his  chorus  sing  that  "Beautiful  is  Peace,  that  lovely 
boy,"  and  afterward  that  "war  hath  her  victories,"  war  "which  decides 
the  fate  of  man"  Similarly  in  "Henry  V"  (Act  II,  Scene  4)  Shaka- 
jiere  makes  the  Dauphin  of  rrancc  say  that  peace  "dulls"  a  kingdom, 
while  in  the  last  act  we  have  the  Duke  of  Burgundi/\<!  marvelous 
speech  about  the  blessings  of  peace,  "dear  nurse  of  arts,  plenties  and 
joyful  births,"  and  the  injury  done  to  "our  fertile  France"  by  war,  with 
all  her  husbandry  "lying  on  heaps,"  her  vines  unprun'd,  her  meadows 
immown,  and  her  vineyards  grown  to  wildness.  But  it  is  worthy  of 
note  that  even  this  play,  this  "dramatized  triumpli  song  of  the  British 
nation,"  aa  Gildemeister  calls  it.  ends  with  the  words  (V.  2)  spoken  by 
Queen  Isabel  of  France,  "That  English  may  as  French,  French  English- 
men, receive  each  other.     God  speak  this  Amen!"     [A/i]   "Amen!" 


508  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

principle  an  opponent  of  war,  genuineh'  admired  the  Frencli 
Revolution. 

My  reason  for  devoting  so  much  space  to  Schiller  is  to  prove 
that  it  is  by  no  means  always  the  man  who  writes  good  war 
lyrics  who  can  be  claimed  as  a  friend  of  war.  But  the  same 
thing  applies  more  or  less  to  all  dramatic  poets,  for  example,  to 
Shakspere,  although  he  has  written  enough  and  too  much  about 
wars  and  rumors  of  war,  and  although  there  are  characters  in 
his  plays  who  praise  and  love  war.  xMthough  Shakspere  has 
many  a  vigorous  passage  about  war,  yet  he  himself  was  nowise 
a  war-lover,  but  a  peace-lover,  as  is  clear  from  the  charaeter- 
i.stic  passage  in  "Henry  V"  in  which  the  Duke  of  Burgundy 
extols  peace.  But  above  all  his  sonnets  prove  this,  for,  as 
Bodenstedt  says,  in  them  we  see  the  man  in  the  poet  before  us. 
Read  sonnets  19,  25,  66,  94  and  particularly  107,  which  is  one 
of  the  finest  of  odes  to  perpetual  peace.  It  is  impossible  not  to 
admire  the  assurance  which  enabled  Shakspere  even  then  to 
say: 

Incertainties  uow  crown  themselves  assured, 
And  peace  proclaims  olives  of  endless  age.^ 

§  182.— Lyric  Poetry 

Even  the  war  lyrists,  however,  must  not  be  judged  indis- 
criminately by  their  verses,  for  they  did  not  always  take 
Goethe's  warning  to  heart  and  put  nothing  in  their  poetrj'  save 
what  they  themselves  had  inwardly  experienced.  Referring  to 
war  h'rists  in  particular,  Goethe  -  once  said : 

1  In  sonnets  19  and  94  I  really  cannot  find  much  indication  of  Shaks- 
pere's  preference  for  peace.  In  Sonnets  25  and  66  and  particularly  in 
Sonnet  107  it  is  clear.  Dr.  Nicolai  admits  that  he  is  quoting  Coden- 
stedt's  translation,  which  appeared  in  Berlin  in  l'^62,  with  tlic  numbera 
of  the  sonnets  all  chanired.  Consequently  he  may  be  wronu'  in  liis  num- 
bers as  regards  Shakspere.  But  No.  107  is  evidently  the  sonnet  be 
means,  as  lie  quotes  the  above  two  lines  in  a  free  German  translation. 
I  have  consulted  Dowden's  edition. — Translator. 

-  Eckermann's  "Conversations  with  Goethe,"  March  5,  1830.  Cotta's 
edition.  III.  p.  217  et  seci.  (Theodov  Korner,  was  a  writer  of  the  fieriest 
patriotic  songs. — Translator.  . 


TRANSFORMATION  IN  HUMAN  JUDGMENT      509 

Writing  war-poems  and  sitting  in  a  room — that  would  not  have 
done  for  me!  To  sally  forth  from  a  camp  where  at  night  you  could 
hear  the  horses  of  the  enemy's  advance  posts — that  I  could  imagine 
myself  enjoying.  But  my  life  and  work  were  cast  in  different  lines, 
and  I  left  such  things  to  Theodor  Korner.  His  war-songs  absolutely 
suit  him,  but  in  my  case,  I  being  in  no  sense  a  warlike  disposition, 
war-songs  would  have  been  like  a  mask  which  did  not  lit. 

I  have  never  touched  upon  or  expressed  anything  in  my  poetry 
save  what  I  had  pei-sonally  gone  through  and  what  clamored  for 
expression  in  me  and  occupied  my  thoughts.  I  have  only  written 
love-poems  when  I  was  in  love.  How  could  I  have  written  hate- 
poems,  then,  without  hate? 

Here  we  have  the  real  truth.  IMost  visiters  concoct  their 
hymns  of  hate  without  hating.  They  write  to  order,  and  de- 
scribe a  battle  when  they  had  rather  be  doing  something  else, 
or,  as  Theodor  Korner  once  said,  "with  the  enthusiasm  of  a 
coward  they  shout  out  their  delight  to  their  conquering 
brethren."  ^  Their  place  is  with  those  who  sit  at  home  in  the 
chimney-corner,  and  who  were  an  abomination  to  this  young 
hero. 

Even  the  verses  of  the  old  war  lyrist,  Tyrta?us,  limped.  AVe 
will  not  concern  ourselves,  however,  with  the  martial  poetry 
of  other  nations,  but  only  with  that  of  Germany.  Here  again, 
we  find  the  same  old  story — war  lyrics  only  too  obviously  writ- 
ten not  by  the  light  of  a  camp-tire,  but  by  that  of  a  study  lamp. 
Take  the  poet  Gleim,  for  instance,  whose  celebrity  is  mainly 
due  to  his  "Songs  of  a  Prussian  Grenadier,"  published  in 
1756  and  1757.  His  poem  going  over  all  the  wars  of  Frederick 
the  Great  and  entitled  "To  the  Eighteenth  Century"  is  suffi- 
cient proof  of  his  not  having  been  of  martial  disposition. 

Old  Father  Gleim  excluded  war  from  the  category  of  the 
virtues,  but  above  all  he  says  that  men  make  war  of  their  own 
free  will  (Cf.  §  6),  and  this  must  always  be  counted  unto  him 
for  righteousness. 

1  Kiirner  having  voliintcpred  to  fight  for  Prussia  apainst  Napoleon 
In  18i;j  was  entitled  to  such  a  sneer.  He  fell  in  battle  the  aauie  year. — 
Translator. 


510  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

Friedricli  Riiekert,  who  afterward  became  a  distinguished 
Orientalist,  merely  held  the  mirror  up  to  the  nature  of  his  age 
in  his  famous  "Sonnets  in  Armor,"  in  writing  which  he  cer- 
tainly did  not  draw  on  his  own  personal  experience.  In 
treating  of  the  wisdom  of  the  Brahmans  he  was  not  so  martial. 
Even  the  people  felt  the  want  of  sincerity  of  his  sonnets,  and 
even  ]\Iajor  Beitzke  ^  says  that  "sonnets  are  not  a  vehicle  for 
the  blaring  of  trumpets  and  the  roar  of  cannon. "  In  so  sajnng 
he  is  thinking  of  Scheiikendorf  and  Fouque,^  although  they  did 
go  through  the  campaign  as  lieutenants  of  volunteer  marksmen 
(Jager). 

Platen,  it  is  true,  also  served  as  a  lieutenant  in  the  last  cam- 
paign against  Napoleon,  although  he  did  not  reach  the  firing- 
line  ;  and  his  at  first  obviously  trumped-up  hatred  of  Napoleon, 
which  found  vent  in  feeble  rhymes,  was  under  the  influence 
of  this  campaign,  speedily  converted  into  a  feeling  exactly  the 
opposite. 

As  for  the  Wars  of  Liberation,  indeed,  in  which,  neverthe- 
less, the  nation  was  said  to  have  arisen  as  one  man,  hardly  a 
single  person  who  fought  in  them  afterward  achieved  any  im- 
portance in  science  or  art.  Yet  at  the  time  those  who  ought 
to  have  constituted  Germany's  subsequent  greatness  were 
young. 

There  was  one  who  of  course  did  not  draw  the  sword  at  this 
time,  although  he  had  formerly  served  in  the  Prussian  Army, 
and  that  wa.s  the  Franco-German,  Chamisso.  Yet  we  must  not 
forget  his  prophetic  utterance  just  then.  "I  have  as  yet  no 
country,"  he  said,  thinking  of  the  time  when  all  Europe  would 
form  one  great  civilized  community.  But  of  all  the  other 
poets,  many  of  whom  both  before  and  after  wrote  many  a 
battle-poem,  hardly  a  single  one  served  in  the  army ;  and  as  for 
those  representing  the  other  arts  and  the  sciences,  if  possible 
fewer  still  of  them  were  in  the  fighting-line.     Fouque  came 

1  Gleim's  "Lieder  fiir  das  Volk"  ("Songs  for  the  People"),  Halber- 
stadt,  1772.     No.  66. 

2  Fouque,  author  of  "Undine." 


TRANSFORMATION  IN  HUMAN  JUDGMENT      511 

from  an  old  general's  family;  and  he,  Chamisso,  Platen,  and 
Zedlitz  were  all  officers.  They  therefore  really  ought  to 
have  been  obliged  to  go  to  the  war ;  yet  Chamisso  and  Zedlitz 
did  not  go;  Immermann  was  ill  in  1813;  Eichendorff  led  a 
somewhat  inactive  life  guarding  fortifications  at  Torgau;  and 
Schenkendorf,  who  could  not  use  his  right  hand,  was  employed 
at  headquarters.  This  exhausts  the  list  of  those  who  delighted 
in  the  war.  Nevertheless,  Wilhelm  Miiller,  Justinus  Kerner, 
the  brothers  Grimm,  Ludwig  Uhland,  Gustav  Schwab,  Ludwig 
Tieck,  Riickert,  Vanihagen  von  Ense,  Ludwig  Borne,  Graf  von 
Piickler-Muskau,  and  Grillparzer  were  then  between  twenty 
and  thirty  years  of  age :  and  Achim  von  Arnim,  Clemens 
Brentano,  and  Theodor  Amadeus  Hoffmann,  not  to  mention 
any  others,  were  not  much  over  thirty.  It  would  seem,  there- 
fore, as  if,  when  it  is  really  left  open  to  a  man  whether  he  will 
join  the  army  or  no,  those  who  feel  themselves  capable  of  really 
achieving  anything  in  any  direction  are  not  willing  to  go  to 
war. 

§  183.— The  Three  German  Poets  of  War 

There  remain  therefore  these  three:  Ewald  and  Ileinrich 
von  Kleist,  and  Theodor  Korner.  But  was  Theodor  Korner 
really  a  poet?  I  believe  that  even  his  most  enthusiastic  ad- 
mirers now  no  longer  think  so.  Early  arrived  at  maturity,  he 
wrote  some  comedies  which  created  a  certain  stir  in  good 
society  in  Vienna,  where  light  literature  is  much  appreciated. 
Then  he  wrote  a  few  mediocre  tragedies,  and  then  he  was 
suddenly  involved  in  the  war,  although  he  had  never  before 
given  it  or  military  enthusiasm  a  thought.  Romantic  notions 
of  the  greatness  of  Roman  heroes,  particularly  Decius's  ^  divine 
sacrifice  of  himself,  stirred  his  feelings.  He  went  to  war  an 
innocent  child,  and  out  of  his  enthusiasm  for  it  he  wrote  a 
handful  of  poems  which  are  rightly  remembered,  whereas  the 
rest  of  his  writings  are  mere  literary  ballast.     But,  after  all, 

1  Korner's  letter  to  his  fatlier  of  December  19,  1812. 


512  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

it  is  uot  really  the  poet  Korner  who  is  remembered,  but  the 
.youth  who,  full  of  fine  enthusiasm,  fell  for  his  country. 

He  went  to  war  an  innocent  child,  and  the  views  of  this 
twenty-year-old  youth  hardly  count  in  trying  to  arrive  at  an 
estimate  of  what  the  nations  really  thought.  We  do  not  know 
wliat  life  might  have  made  of  him,  though  we  may  guess  at 
this.  When  Korner,  as  he  said,  "had  to  spend  rather  a  long 
time  at  headquarters  against  his  wish  and  contrary  to  expecta- 
tion," he  wrote  to  Frau  von  Pereira  in  Vienna,  on  July  28, 
1813,  referring  to  this  period,  "If  you  have  had  a  glance  at  the 
kitchen,  you  can  hardly  help  having  a  horror  of  what  is  cooked 
there."  A  few  weeks  later  he  fell  on  the  field  near  Gadebusch, 
and  was  thus  prevented  from  giving  further  expression  to  this 
horror. 

There  remain,  therefore,  only  the  two  Kleists.  It  is  scarcely 
necessary  to  argue  that  Ewald  von  Kleist  was  no  poet,  but  a 
patriot.  His  patriotism,  moreover,  w^as  merely  devotion  to  the 
great  king,  and  not  at  all  to  his  mother-country,  Germany. 
How  could  it,  indeed,  have  been  otherwise  with  a  man  who  used 
to  travel  about  Switzerland  pressing  recruits  into  the  service 
of  his  king,  a  sovereign  enthusiastically  devoted  to  French  cul- 
ture ?  Nor  did  his  enthusiasm  for  the  war  go  very  deep,  for 
the  German  historian  ]Maximilian  Lenz,  when  addressing  the 
annual  meeting  of  the  Goethe  Society  in  1915,  and  endeavoring 
to  discover  traces  of  "German  national  sentiment  in  the  period 
of  our  classical  writers,"  actuall}'  says  of  Ewald  von  Kleist 
that  "Even  for  this  poet  poetry  and  serving  in  the  army  WTre 
really  two  different  worlds."  There  remains,  therefore,  only 
Hcinrich  von  Kleist,  who  was  a  poet  and  who  wrote  war-songs 
of  an  outrageous  savagery  equalling  that  of  any  modern  writer. 

Impartially  considered,  however,  this  so-called  martial  en- 
thusiasm appears  in  a  singular  light.  It  is  somewhat  stagger- 
ing to  find,  for  instance,  that  among  the  twenty-odd  poems  of 
his  which  have  come  down  to  us  is  one  of  the  finest  "peace- 
songs"  in  all  literature.  This  poem,  "Der  hohere  Frieden" 
("The  Higher  Peace")  may  be  quoted  in  full ; 


TRANSFORMATION  IN  HUMAN  JUDGMENT      513 

Wenn  sicb  auf  des  Krieges  Donnerwagen 
Menschen  waffnen  auf  der  Zwietracht  Ruf, 
Menschen,  die  im  Busen  Herzen  tragen, 
Herzen,  die  der  Gott  der  Liebe  sehuf. 

Denk  ich,  kcinnen  sie  docb  mir  nichts  rauben, 
Nicht  den  Frieden,  der  sich  selbst  bewlilirt, 
Nicht  die  Unseliuld,  nicht  an  Gott  den  Glauben, 
Der  dem  Hasse  wie  dem  Schrecken  webrt. 

Nicht  des  Aborns  Schatten  wehren, 
Dass  er  micb  im  Weizenfeid  erquickt, 
Und  das  Lied  der  Nacbtigall  nicht  storen, 
Die  den  stillen  Busen  mir  entziickt. 

This  song  was  written  in  1792  or  1793,  during  the  Rhine 
campaign,  when  Ileinrich  von  Kleist,  still  a  young  man,  was  a 
lieutenant  in  the  Prussian  Guards,  but,  as  it  clearly  shows, 
war  and  soldiering  did  not  suit  him,  and  he  soon  bade  fare- 
well to  both.  The  next  thing  he  did  was  to  write  his 
"  Schroffenstein  Famih^,"  which  is  an  outspoken  descrip- 
tion of  the  folly  of  war.  Indeed,  did  we  not  know  that  it 
appeared  in  1803,  it  might  easily  be  taken  for  a  parody  on 
the  present  war.  Two  nations,  who  really  have  a  great  affec- 
tion for  each  other,  fall  out  and  go  to  war  because  they  have 
prepared  for  this  war  so  long,  and  each  side  thinks  it  must 
break  out  some  day  or  other.  Added  to  the  war  are  all  kinds 
of  misunderstandings,  particularly  telegrams  which  have  been 
wrongly  interpreted,  sometimes  intentionally,  sometimes  un- 
intentionally. The  first  country  which  must  needs  believe  in 
these  telegrams  is  a  neutral  state  (Hieronimus),  which  would 
like  to  intervene  between  the  respective  parties.  Then  the 
insane  war  begins,  and  when  it  is  over  both  sides  perceive 
that  all  they  have  been  doing  was  to  murder  their  o^vn 
children. 

No,  Heinrich  von  Kleist  was  never,  never  a  warrior.  He 
loved  fhe  right  and  hated  force.  Every  line  he  has  written 
can  be  explained  in  this  M^ay  and  in  this  way  only.    We  need 


514  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

only  recall  all  his  famous  writings:  "Der  Zerbroehene 
Knig"  ("The  Broken  Pitcher"),  "Prinz  von  Homburg," 
"Michael  Kohlhaas,"  "Marquise  von  O,"  etc.  But  Heinrich 
von  Kleist  saw  that  the  right  does  not  prevail  in  this  world, 
and  this  put  him  beside  himself.  There  is  something  in  his 
old  Michael  Kohlhaas  about  him:  "The  sentiment  of  right" 
made  a  "robber  and  a  murderer"  of  him,  too,  and  his  war 
lyrics  and  his  play  "Die  Herrmannschlacht "  are  protests 
against  that  unjust  war  of  which  for  him  Napoleon  was  the  in- 
carnation.    They  are  not  hymns  in  praise  of  any  just  war. 

Life  made  him  cruel,  and  he  makes  his  Herrmann  kill 
"good  and  bad"  indiscriminately  and  murder  prisoners  and 
envoj^s;  while  he  makes  Thusnelda  cause  her  former  lover  to 
be  torn  in  pieces  by  a  bear.  Then  there  are  scenes  such  as 
that  in  which  Herrmann  and  Fust  thrash  each  other  in  order 
to  decide  who  shall  have  the  honor  of  killing  Varus,  who  is 
standing  by,  looking  on;  or  the  scene  in  " Penthesilea, "  where 
Achilles  is  torn  to  pieces  by  the  dogs  of  his  lady-love.  Such 
scenes  are  a  sign  that  the  writer's  imagination,  although  that 
of  a  genius,  was,  nevertheless,  over-excited.  Moreover,  his 
crazy  war-lyrics  were  not  written  till  1809,  and  consequently 
at  a  time  when  the  poet's  mind  was  already  unquestionably 
unhinged.  One  effect  produced  another,  and  the  poet,  having 
lost  that  "higher  peace"  to  which  he  has  such  fine  lines,  came 
to  love  murder  and  horror,  and  thus  in  darkness  and  night 
took  his  own  life.  Verily,  when  we  look  back  calmly  upon 
this  German's  life,  we  cannot  but  conclude  that  he  had  to  pay 
a  heavy  price  for  his  estrangement  from  peace.  Heinrich  von 
Kleist,  indeed,  is  no  argument  for  war,  but  rather  one  against 
it. 

§  184. — The  Poet  and  Liberty 

One  more  point  I  wish  to  bring  forward,  but  it  is  my  main 
point.  In  all  war-poems  composed  by  any  genuine  poet  it  is 
never  war  as  such  which  is  brought  in,  but  always  "wars 
unknown  to  any  crowned  heads" — revolts  of  oppressed  inan- 


TRANSFORMATION  IN  HUMAN  JUDGMENT      515 

kind  against  some  usurper  or  otlier.^  Any  one  instancing 
war-lyrics  as  proving  poets'  enthusiasm  for  war,  therefore, 
must  be  logical :  he  must  first  become  enthusiastic  for  liberty ; 
and  then,  and  not  till  then,  for  war. 

This  is  never  more  clearly  manifest  than  when  comparing 
German,  war-lyrics  of  former  times  with  those  of  this  war, 
from  whose  beneficial  influence  on  art  very  much  was  hoped. 
The  result  can  already  be  seen  in  a  number  of  anthologies, 
but  it  is.  just  the  true  patriots  who  are  likelj^  to  be  somewhat 
distressed  about  this.  Most  of  them  would  probably  agree 
with  FrJedrich  Lienhard  ^  in  ''deploring  the  precocious  and 
extravagant  doggerel  of  the  present  day";  and  even  the  much 
praised  "Hymn  of  Hate"  against  England,  millions  of  copies 
of  which  were  sown  broadcast,  is  now  rejected  as  smacking  too 
"much  of  the  Old  Testament,"  and  rejected  by  the  very  per- 
sons who  did  their  best  to  procure  it  its  short-lived  celebrity. 

In  an  astute  article  in  the  "Kunstwart,"  moreover,  the 
German  art  critic  Wilhelm  Stapel  pointed  out,  quite  rightly, 
that  to  compare  the  patriotic  poems  of  1813  and  those  of 
1870  is  like  first  tapping  the  body  of  a  violin  and  then  a  box 
of  cigarettes ;  the  difference  is  not  mereh'  striking,  but  alarm- 
ing. The  cause  of  the  inferiority  of  the  1870  war  poetrj^  was 
that  the  old  expressions  were  used  again  and  an  attempt  made 
to  outdo  them.  Moreover,  in  1813  the  protagonists  of  liberty 
expressed  their  innocent  quest  in  the  future;  and  in  1870 
every  one  was  basking  in  the  sunshine  of  German's  great- 
ness and  of  self-satisfaction.  The  true  note  of  patriotism  was 
already  wanting,  and  there  was  instead  an  ebullition  in  honor 
of  Bismarck,  the  emperor,  and  the  empire. 

Freiheit,  die  ieh  meine,  die  mein  Herz  erfiillt, 
Komm  rait  Deinem  Scheme,  susses  Engelsbild, 

wrote  Schenkendorff  in  1813. 

1  Cf.  S  130. 

-  "Deutsch lands  Europiiische  Sendung"  ("Germany's  European  Mie- 
siun")  by  Friedrich  Lionhard,  1914:  Stuttgart. 


516  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

Hurra,  Du  stolzes  schones-Weib,  hurra  Germania, 

"Wie  kiilin  mit  vorgebeugtem  Leib  am  Rheine  stehst  Du  da, 

wrote  Freiligrath  in  1870. 

And  what  about  the  German  poets  of  1914?  Stapel,  whose 
article  just  referred  to  was  published  shortly  after  the  out- 
break of  war,  hoped  that,  "unless  appearances  are  altogether 
deceitful,  we  may  now  be  on  the  eve  of  another  great  ex- 
perience which  will  prove  the  inspiration  of  a  finer  patriotic 
poetry,  as  was  the  case  a  hundred  years  ago."  Doubtless  the 
first  year  of  war  robbed  him  of  his  illusions,  for  all  competent 
judges  agreed  that  never  before  were  the  verses  of  Fulda, 
Halbe,  Hauptmann,  Dehmel,  Arno  Holz,  and  Ludwig  Thoma 
so  meaningly  lacking  in  sincerity  as  now.  Even  the  humor- 
ous verse  written  since  August,  1914,  by  Leo  Leipziger  and 
Georg  Freund,  Gottleib  and  Caliban,  shows  only  too  plainly 
a  striving  after  effect,  and  is  only  too  obviously  written  to 
order.  Finally  we  come  to  the  new  poets  produced  by  the  war, 
Fritz  von  Unruh,  Dr.  Klemm,  and  others.  They  may,  indeed, 
be  martial,  but  as  poets  they  are  worth  little.  In  short,  all 
the  characteristics  which  distinguished  the  lyric  poetry  of  1870 
from  that  of  1813  (not  to  the  advantage  of  the  former)  are 
still  more  manifest  in  the  war  poetry  of  to-day. 

This  continuous  deterioration  may  be  accounted  for  in  two 
ways.  Either  Germany's  capacity  for  producing  pOetry  has 
decreased,  or  wars,  the  impetus  for  such  poetry,  are  fought  less 
for  an  idea  or  ideal  and  more  for  the  hope  of  material  advan- 
tage.    We  will  deal  with  the  second  of  these  suppositions  only. 

In  the  Wars  of  Liberation  ^  the  people  were  fighting  for 
liberty — liberty  in  all  respects,  civil,  political,  military,  and 
social,  and  likewise  for  freedom  of  association.     We  need  only 

1  It  is  siffnificant  tliat  we  have  recently  begim  to  call  the  "Wars  of 
Freedom"  (Freiheitskriege)  "Wars  of  Liberation,"  (Befreiungsl-riege) , 
as  if  the  main  object  had  been  liberation  from  the  yoke  of  Napoleon. 
Lampreoht  recently  called  attention  (in  '"Krieo^  nnd  Kultnr"  ("War  and 
Civilization")  :  Leipsic,  Hirzel,  1914,  p.  1,3,  to  this  "remarkable  twist- 
ing" of  a  word;  for  the  winning  of  freedom  of  thought  and  opinion, 
which  occurred  at  the  same  time,  was,  he  says,  fully  as  important. 


TRANSFORMATION  IN  HUMAN  JUDGMENT      517 

think  of  Schiller's  "Riiuber"  or  "Kabale  und  Liebe,"  which 
were  essentially  "topical"  plays.  What  a  complete  trans- 
formation has  come  about  is  proved  by  the  impossibility  of 
imagining  the  events  on  which  these  dramas  are  based  as  hav- 
ing happened  afier  1813.  In  the  Franco-Prussian  War  the 
people  were  fighting  for  national  unity.  This  was  no  longer 
unconditional  progress,  and  the  very  men  who  had  formerly 
championed  the  conception  of  unity,  such  as  Georg  Herwegh, 
stood  resentfully  aside,  as  also  did  Bebel  and  Liebkuecht,  the 
champions  of  the  new  order  of  things. 

But  what  happened  in  the  War  of  1914?  For  what  are  the 
people  fighting  now  ?  Our  Government  tells  us  that  it  is  a  de- 
fensive war.  But  mankind  has  never  waxed  enthusiastic 
about  anything  negative.  Others  talk  about  the  acquisition  of 
land,  and  not  always  for  purely-  commercial  reasons.  In  this, 
too,  there  is  nothing  to  inspire  poets.  And  what  about  the 
"place  in  the  sun"?  Great  heavens,  the  poet's  sun, — at  any 
rate,  the  sun  of  a  poet  who  writes  good  poems — is  a  wholly 
different  thing  from  the  sun  which  is  meant  here. 

As  Goethe  rightly  observed,  war-poems  are  poems  on  par- 
ticular occasions,  and  if  they  are  to  be  good,  the  occasions  must 
be  good ;  and  our  present  day  war-poems  are  bad  for  the  same 
reason  as  Goethe's  poems  on  special  occasions  were  bad,  when, 
for  instance,  he  wrote  a  poem  on  the  birth  of  some  uninterest- 
ing princess  of  Weimar. 

The  failure  of  German  war-poctr\'  must  be  accounted  for 
by  some  other  cause  than  that  the  occasion  was  not  favorable. 
Hundreds  of  thousands  of  poets  put  a  bridle  on  Pegasus,  and 
there  was  as.suredly  no  lack  of  choice  of  writers.  The  noisA' 
enthusiasm  of  the  first  months  of  the  war  ought  to  have  been 
able  to  supply  the  necessary  inspiration;  and,  in  fact, 
even  the  German  General  Staff  reports  were  transfused  with  a 
poetic  strain.^     And  then  what  direct  possibilities  of  inspira- 

1  It  is  sufikient  to  recall  the  dramatic  intenpitv  with  whidi,  for  iii- 
etanoe,  the  conquest  ot  Li^we  was  described  in  the  German  General 
Staff   reports.     First   an    attempt   was    announced,    which    very    nearly 


518  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

tion!  It  is  with  somewhat  scant  courtesy  that  Brutus  rid 
himself  of  a  poet  who  went  to  the  front.  "What  should  the 
wars  do  with  these  jigging  fools?  Companion,  hence !"^ 
But  to-day  we  think  differently  of  jigging  fools. 

Richard  Dehmel  was  in  the  trenches,  as  a  thousand  odd 
"new  poets"  also  were,  and  Ludwig  Ganghofer  was  at  head- 
quarters; but  most  of  the  others,  including  R.  H.  Bartsch,  II. 
Eulenberg,  B.  Kellermann,  Aage  Madelung,  and  C.  Volhnoller, 
oscillated  between  these  two  extremes,  some  of  them  as  offi- 
cers, others  as  war  correspondents. 

No,  the  outward  circumstances  were  favorable  to  poetry, 
and  if,  nevertheless,  none  was  produced ;  if,  as  every  one  is 
agreed,  Fulda,  Halbe,  Hauptmann,  Sudermann,  Arno  Holz, 
and  Ludwig  Thoma,  never  before  wrote  such  insipid  verses, 
we  may  at  any  rate  console  ourselves  with  the  reflection  that 
the  German  people's  unconscious  sense  of  fitness  and  right  is 
still  sufficient  to  prevent  it  being  really  profoundly  stirred  by 
events  not  likely  to  promote  any  ideals. 

4. — MODERN    DELIGHT   IN    WAR 

§  185. — The  Renascence  of  Delight  in  AYar 

In  times  past  premature  war  advocates  were  only  very  oc- 
casionally to  be  found.     Machiavelli  was  an  instance  of  one 

succeeded;  then,  on  the  seventh,  the  actual  conquest:  "The  fortress  of 
Liege  is  taken."  And  then,  on  the  tenth,  came  the  "Truth  about 
Lifege,"  according  to  which  the  town  was  now  so  firmly  in  our  grip  that 
lieaven  and  earth  could  not  wrest  it  from  us  again.  This  way  of  putting 
it  caused  even  simple-minded  people  to  think  that  tliere  must  be  some- 
thing still  not  quite  as  it  should  be;  and.  sure  enough,  on  the  eighteenth 
came  the  official  announcement  that  now  the  "mystery  of  Liege  could  be 
unveiled."  But  probably  not  quite  imvoiled,  for  there  were  still  droll 
episodes  to  come  when  the  commandment  was  captured  and  a  Zeppelin 
dropped  bombs  on  the  fort  of  Li&ge,  two  announcements  which  were 
omitted  from  the  Wolff  telegrams,  as  subsequently  issued.  Then  think 
of  the  really  epic  description  of  Belgian  atrocities,  particularly  gouged- 
out  eyes,  which  the  German  Chancellor  gave  the  representatives  of  the 
"American  United  and  Associated  Press."  And  think  of  such  poetic 
neologisms  as  "colored  Englishmen,"  "Black  Frenchmen,"  and  so  forth. 
1 "  Julius  Caesar,"  IV,  3. 


TRANSFORJMATION  IN  HUMAN  JUDGMENT      519 

such.  In  his  "Prince"  he  praises  or  excuses  murder  and  bad 
faith,  treachery  and  brutality,  everything,  in  short,  which  may 
lead  a  man  to  power.  Thus  he  praises  and  excuses  war,  and 
even  if  he  does  not  go  to  such  lengths  as  men  to-day,  and  insist 
upon  the  advantages  of  war,  still,  he  glosses  over  its  evils  with 
the  infamous  grace  of  a  pupil  of  the  Borgia/ 

But  although  ^lachiavelli  extolled  war,  he  was,  after  all, 
alone  in  doing  so,  and  even  those  who  acted  upon  his  principles 
had  sufficient  sense  of  shame  to  oppose  him  in  theory.  Even 
during  his  life  this  was  the  case.  The  Medici  disavowed  him, 
so  that  he  was  forced  to  join  in  the  conspiracy  of  Cosimo 
Rucellai  in  1523 ;  and  in  1527,  when  the  people  had  really 
fought  for  and  won  their  freedom,  they,  too,  would  have 
nothing  to  do  with  him,  and  he  was  not  even  elected  a  city 
councilor.  Thus  matters  continued  a  long  while,  and  not 
till  the  nineteenth  century,  and  even  then  not  until  the  second 
half  of  it,  did  any  one  venture  openly  to  side  with  Machia- 
velli ;  and  then,  sad  to  say,  mainly  in  that  very  Prussia  whose 
king  once  wrote  against  the  famous  Florentine. 

To  use  the  terms  customary  in  the  history  of  art,  this  essen- 
tially sentimental  reversion  to  the  simple-minded  point  of 
view  of  the  oldest  and  most  primitive  human  beings,  might  be 
spoken  of  as  archaistic.  But  it  will  be  more  easily  understood 
when  it  is  seen  to  have  been  due  to  a  threefold  misunderstand- 
ing. First,  it  is  a  fact  that  in  the  nineteenth  century  the 
condition  of  "a  nation  in  arms,"  which  had  long  been  a  thing 
of  the  past,  was  resurrected.  Formerly  only  a  limited  number 
of  professional  men  of  anns  were  involved  in  war ;  but  now  the 
entire  people  were  so.  It  is  humanly  comprehensible,  there- 
fore, that  the  civilian  fathers  learned  to  love  the  soldiers, 
their  sons,  who  were  actually  in  the  fighting-line;  and  hence  it 
was  that  first  the  army  became  popular,  and,  finally,  war  itself. 

1  Cf.  in  particular  his  sixth  chapter  (of  new  dominions  wliieh  havo 
DPon  acquired  hy  one's  own  aims  and  power),  in  wliich  he  hiys  it  down 
that  conquest  with  arms,  in  itself  useless,  is  really  the  beginning  of  con- 
quest properly  so  called. 


520  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

Yet  national  armies,  which  owed  their  origin  to  the  Revolution, 
were  originally  inclined  to  be  altogether  anti-war-like ;  for  they 
were  armies  against  war,  nations  as  a  whole  protesting  against 
the  irresponsible  system  of  government  based  upon  the  exist- 
ence of  the  old  professional  soldiers. 

In  the  American  War  of  Independence  undrilled  militia 
commanded  by  Washington  had  won  a  victory  over  British 
regulars.  Then  came  the  French  Revolution,  in  1793,  with  its 
levee  en  masse  and  its  national  armies,  with  their  irresistible 
onslaught.  These  armies,  originally  justified  by  the  fight  for 
freedom,  were  afterward  increasingly  used  by  Napoleon  for 
wars  undeniably  more  or  less  dynastic  in  character,  or,  at  any 
rate,  wars  waged  for  purely  personal  considerations.  Then 
they  failed,  but,  on  the  other  hand,  when  France's  enemies  in 
their  fight  for  freedom  introduced  that  same  universal  con- 
scription for  which  the}^  had  so  often  blamed  France,  this  de- 
cided the  issue,  first  in  Austria,  under  the  Archduke  Charles, 
and  later  on  in  Prussia  under  Scharnhorst.  But  here  again, 
precisely  as  happened  in  France,  a  temporary  institution, 
originally  intended  only  for  the  war  and  for  freedom,  was 
converted  into  a  permanent  one,  in  order  to  conform  to  Met- 
ternich's  ideas.^ 

The  enormous  armies  of  modern  times,  therefore,  originally 
used  for  fighting  out  revolutions,  gradually  came  to  be  used 
to  serve  the  purposes  of  reaction.  Their  origin  was  speedily 
forgotten,  but  the  fact  of  their  existence  could  not  fail  to 
incline  the  peoples  to  delight  in  war,  for  everything  which 
exists  clamors  to  be  used.  There  is  something  tragic  in  this 
fate  which  has  befallen  the  one  and  only  democratic  idea  which 
took  possession  of  almost  the  whole  world.  Charles  Fourier, 
however,  the  socialist  and  Utopian,  extraordinarily  able  despite 
all  his  eccentricities,  perceived  that  the  arming  of  whole  na- 
tions would  tend  to  reaction,  and  accordingly  looked  upon  it  as 

1  Cf .  §  75  on  the  rise  of  standing  armies,  for  details  of  the  conversion 
of  territorial  defense  forces  into  an  army  of  aggression. 


TRANSFORMATION  IN  HUMAN  JUDGMENT      521 

an  alarming  reversion  to  the  habits  of  Tatars  and  Indians.^ 
Secondly,  Darwin's-  biological  theory  that  in  struggle  for 
life  are  comprised  the  conditions  of  racial  progress,  was  fre- 
quently used  to  explain  the  awakening  of  delight  in  war. 
True,  this  theory  has  often  been  disputed,  but  in  its  broad 
general  lines  it  can  scarcely  be  contested.  Since  then  many 
persons,  mostly  professional  soldiers,  it  is  true,  have  imag- 
ined that  they  could  perceive  not  only  beauty,  but  also  a  use- 
ful purpose,  indeed  even  morality,  in  war  and  struggle. 

Thirdly,  it  was  almost  universally  assumed  that  German 
unity  was  a  direct  result  of  Germany's  three  wars,  in  par- 
ticular of  the  Franco-Prussian  War.  Thus  for  the  first  time 
in  the  history  of  the  world  an  undoubted  benefit  seemed  really 
to  have  been  wrought  hy  blood  and  iron ;  and  this  of  course 
also  tended  to  raise  people's  estimate  of  the  value  of  wars. 

§  186. — Moltke  and  his  School 

This  could  not  fail  to  be  particularly  the  case  in  Germany. 
Hence  it  is  not  surprising  that  the  first  voice  ever  heard 
from  time  immemorial  praising  war  for  war's  sake  should 
have  been  that  of  a  German.  It  was  Hellmuth  von  Moltke, 
the  conqueror  in  the  three  wars  to  which  I  have  just  referred, 
who  wrote,  in  his  famous  letter  to  Bluntschli:  '^  Perpetual 
peace  is  a  dream,  and  not  even  a  beautiful  dream,  and  war 
is  a  link  in  God's  universal  ordinance.  In  war  man's  noblest 
qualities  are  developed — courage  and  resignation,  fidelity  to 
duty  and  readiness  to  make  sacrifices,  even  w'hen  it  comes  to 
laying  down  life.  Without  war  the  world  would  become 
swamped  in  materialism."  ^ 

"We  can  scarcely  believe  our  eyes  when  we  see  war  recom- 
mended as  a  remedy  for  materialism  in  the  very  same  lan- 

1  Cf.  §  84  on  the  very  doubtful  claims  of  modern  armies  to  be  consid- 
ered democratic  institutions. 

'^  "On  the  Oricrin  of  Species  by  Means  of  Xatural  Selection,"  1859. 

3  Cf.  Bluntschli's  "Collected  Minor  Writings,"  Vol.  II,  p.  271.  Nord- 
lingen,  1881. 


522  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

guage  as  that  in  which  Herder,  Goethe,  and  Kant  Avrote  ad- 
vocating German  idealism.  But  such  is  the  fact;  there  is  no 
doubt  about  the  genuineness  of  this  letter,  and  it  has  borne 
fruit,  although  the  plain  and  unadorned  simplicity  of  Moltke's 
language  has  never  since  been  attained. 

Unhappily,  it  is  by  these  words  that  Moltke  will  probably 
live  in  history ;  but  we  must  in  justice  point  out  that  they 
are  perhaps  not  wholly  consistent  with  the  character  of  a 
man  of  such  profound  feeling,  and  ought  perhaps  to  be  con- 
sidered merely  as  an  after  effect  of  the  war.  Before  war 
had  conferred  on  ]\loltke  the  utmost  which  it  can  confer  on 
any  one  in  Germany,  that  is,  when  he  was  yet  a  mere  cap- 
tain, he  wrote  that  "increased  prosperity  by  means  of  peace 
is  better  than  military  conquests,"  and  he  hoped  "it  would 
be  possible  to  reduce  standing  armies  in  Europe,"  and  save 
"the  thousands  of  millions  swallowed  up  in  war  expenditure 
and  the  millions  of  men  in  the  prime  of  life  torn  from  their 
occupations,  in  order  to  be  trained  for  use  in  war,  should 
■svar  occur,"  and  "to  make  an  increasingly  productive  use  of 
these  incalculable  sources  of  strength."  Once  he  even  said: 
"We  frankly  admit  that  we  are  in  favor  of  the  much-ridi- 
culed idea  of  peace  between  all  the  European  nations.  Is 
not  the  trend  of  the  history  of  the  world  to  approach  such  a 
peace?"  In  any  case,  however,  he  had  a  sufficiently  prosaic 
notion  of  the  causes  of  this  approximation  to  the  "ideal," 
for  he  thought  the  only  reason  why  wars  were  becoming  less 
frequent  w^as  that  they  were  becoming  more  costly.^ 

The  immense  influence  of  the  Franco-Prussian  War  on  Eu- 
ropean ideas  can  be  traced  in  the  writings  of  the  theologian 
and  philosopher  Ernest  Renan  even  better  than  in  the  case 
of  a  general  such  as  Moltke. 

When  we  see  what  a  transformation  has  occurred,  after 
only  a  few  months  of  war,  in  a  peace-loving  man  such  as 
Renan,  who  has  given  us  books  about  Christ  full  of  the  most 

1  Cf.  Rhanon's  ''VoUoerrecht  und  Volkerfriede,"  ("International  Law 
and  International  Pe«oe"),  1881,  p.  43. 


TRANSFORMATION  IN  HUMAN  JUDGMENT      523 

genuine  excellence,  we  need  no  longer  wonder  at  a  pastor 
who  turned  martial  during  the  Crimean  War,  nor  at  the 
change  in  men's  minds  in  1914.  In  general  no  one  need 
trouble  about  any  books  written  during  war  or  shortly  after 
it  by  a  citizen  of  a  belligerent  country. 

This  is  to  some  extent  true  even  of  Dostoyevsky 's  famous 
article  on  the  war,  written  in  1876,  when  war  was  threaten-r 
ing  again  to  break  out  between  Russia  and  Turke3^  This 
is  the  only  time  that  a  really  eminent  man  has  written  any- 
thing which  could  be  interpreted  as  coinciding  with  Moltke's 
views.  It  is  clear  that  Dostoyevsky 's  is  the  mind  of  a  genius, 
although,  as  we  now  know,  a  genius  on  the  point  of  collapse, 
playing  with  the  notion  that,  alter  all,  there  might  be  some- 
thing good  in  the  threatening  war.  But  Dostoyevsky,  who 
set  murderers  and  prostitutes  on  a  pedestal,  had  at  least  so 
far  preserved  his  reason  as  to  put  his  poem  in  praise  of  war 
into  the  mouth  of  a  man  who,  as  he  writes,  "was  known  to 
hold  very  paradoxical  opinions,  and  who  probablj^  defended 
war  merely  for  the  sake  of  paradox."  I  repeat,  therefore, 
that  Dostoyevsky  by  no  means  defends  war.  On  the  con- 
trary, he  introduces  himself  as  a  speaker  and  is  perpetually 
contradicting  paradoxes. 

]\Iany  others,  not  so  great  as  he,  have,  it  is  true,  followed 
in  Moltke's  footsteps.  This  is  mainly  attributable  to  the 
three  causes  I  have  already  enumerated :  the  existence  of  na- 
tional armies,  misinterpreted  Darwinism,  and  the  fact  that 
the  after-effects  of  the  Franco-Prussian  War  were  represented 
as  morally  a  step  forward. 

§  187. — Instances  from  the  Writings  of  War  Advocates 

Presumably  certain  natures  have  at  all  times  experienced 
direct,  so  to  speak,  physical,  pleasure  in  war;  ^  and  they  were 

1  If  T  may  ho  allowod  to  cite  an  example  of  a  contemporary.  I  vvonid 
mention  Count  Hcventlow  as  an  instance  of  this  type  of  man;  but  )ie 
seems  wholly  devoid  of  any  sucli  hashfulness  as  used  to  prevail  at  one 
time. 


524  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

assuredlj'^  not  the  least  noble  persons  who  did  so,  espeeially 
as  for  a  time  a  certain  sense  of  moral  reticence  seems  to 
have  withheld  them  from  expressing  their  feelings.  Other- 
wise there  is  no  explaining  the  fact  that  in  early  times  this 
martial  point  of  view  should  absolutely  never  have  been  rep- 
resented in  literature.  The  war  advocates  of  those  days,  in 
fact,  were  on  the  defensive,  and  ventured  to  come  forward 
only  whenever  some  new  piece  of  Utopianism  made  belief 
that  the  conception  of  perpetual  peace  was  on  the  point  of 
being  realized.  These  humanists,  as  they  might  be  called, 
were  indeed  far  too  sanguine,  and  the  war  advocates  made  a 
vast  deal  of  cheap  fun  of  them.  Not  one  of  the  latter,  how- 
ever, has  succeeded  in  m_aking  his  name  known,  not  even  to 
specialists.  Who  knows  anything  about  the  opponents  of  the 
Abbe  de  Saint  Pierre?  Who  knows  anything  of  such  a  per- 
son as  Alexander  Lamotte,  Valentin  Emser,  Frederic  Ancil- 
lon,  Riihle  von  Lilienstein,  Luden,  or  Tzchiener?  Anselm  von 
Feuerbach  and  Hegel  ought  alone  to  be  mentioned  in  this 
category ;  for  though  they  opposed  Kant,  they  were  men  of 
some  note.  Yet  despite  their  having  considered  war  necessary, 
they  never  asserted  that  it  was  useful  or  even  good. 

It  was  left  to  modern  times  to  do  this.  True,  not  nearlj'- 
all  those  whom  I  have  in  mind  are  out  and  out  martially  dis- 
posed; but  the  endeavor  to  represent  war  as  morally  justi- 
fiable may  be  seen  running  through  them  like  a  red  thread. 
Thus  the  German  military  writer  S.  R.  Steinmetz  ^  calls  war 
"an  institution  of  God,  Who  is  weighing  the  nations  on  His 
scales."  War,  he  says,  is  "the  main  form  which  a  state  as- 
sumes, and  the  only  means  M^hich  nations  have  of  putting 
forth  all  their  strength  at  one  time  and  for  the  same  pur- 
pose." Victory  is  not  won  because  of  any  one  good  quality, 
but  because  of  a  number  together;  and  there  was  never  a 
defeat  which  could  not  be  traced  to  some  kind  of  crime  or 
weakness.     Fidelit}^,  sense  of  solidarity,  endurance,  conscience, 

1  "Die  Philosophie  des  Krieges"  ("The  Philosophy  of  War")  by  S. 
R.  Steinmetz;   Barth:  Leipsic,  1907. 


TRANSFORMATION  IN  HUMAN  JUDC4MENT      525 

education,  inventiveness,  thrift,  wealth,  physical  healtli,  and 
strength — all  these  and  every  other  kind  of  moral  or  intellec- 
tual superiority  count  before  "God's  great  judgment  seat" 
and  when  "He  hurls  the  peoples  one  against  another  " 

But  the  more  recent  writings  of  Lasson  ^  and  Kattenbusch," 
of  Homer  Lea  and  J.  P.  B.  Storey,  of  Ratzenhofer "  and  Sten- 
gel,* of  Professor  Wilkinson  ^  and  Admiral  Mahan,*^  will  be 
read  in  after  times  only  with  a  certain  feeling  of  amazement. 
All  in  good  time  I  purpose  to  refer  to  their  writings  in  detail. 

But  the  book  in  which  this  modern  conception  of  war  was 
undoubtedly  most  uncompromisingly  and  boldly  expressed 
was  "Germany  and  the  Next  War,"  by  the  German  General 
Bernhardi,  which  appeared  in  1912.  The  fact  of  its  author 
being  a  recognized  authority  on  strategical  questions  lent  the 
book  additional  importance.  Bernhardi  argues  that  Germany 
must  fight  for  predominance,  without  any  regard  for  the 
rights  and  interests  of  other  nations.  He  speaks  of  the  "duty 
of  waging  war,"  and  describes  the  German  peace  movement 
as  "poison,"  being  firmly  convinced  that  the  business  before 
the  German  people  could  not  be  carried  out  save  by  resort  to 
the  use  of  the  sword.  The  duty  of  self-assertion,  according 
to  him,  is  by  no  means  confined  merely  to  repelling  the  ene- 
my's attacks,  but  includes  insuring  the  existence  of  the  en- 

1  "Das  Kulturirleal  iind  der  Krieg"  ("War  and  the  Ideal  of  Civilisa- 
tion")  and  "War,"  by  Adolf  Lasson;   Berlin,  1868. 

2  "Das  sittliclie  Reeht  des  Krieges"  ("TTie  Moral  Eight  to  I\Iake 
War"),  by  F.  Kattenbusch:  Gieasen,  100(i. 

3  "Die  soziologische  Erkenntnis  iind  die  'positive  Enthik' "  ("Recog- 
nition of  Sociology  and  'Positive  Ethics'"),  by  General  Ratzenhofer: 
Leipsic,  1001. 

4  "Weltstaat  und  Friedensproblem"  ("A  Universal  State  and  the 
Problem  of  Peace"),  by  Karl  von  Stengel:  Berlin,  19()().  [lliis  Stengel 
was  a  delegate  to  the  first  Hague  Conference,  on  which  occasion  he  gave 
such  proofs  of  his  bellicosity  as  highly  to  delight  the  caricaturists  of 
the  day,  who  represented  him  as  a  particularly  obstreperous  goat 
standing  on  its  legs,  butting  the  gardener,  who  is  trying  to  cultivate  the 
peace  flowers. — Translator.] 

5  "War  and  Policy,"  by  Professor  Spencer  Wilkinson,  1000. 
8  "  The  Influence  of  Sea-Power  upon  History,"  1800. 


526  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

tire  community  included  within  the  confines  of  the  state,  and 
making  it  possible  for  them  to  develop  and  expand.  Further- 
more, he  asserts  the  desirability  of  conquests  being  achieved 
by  war  and  not  by  peaceful  means.  Silesia,  he  adds,  would 
not  have  been  worth  so  much  to  Prussia  if  Frederick  the 
Great  had  acquired  it  by  the  decree  of  an  arbitral  tribunal. 
Attempts  to  abolish  war  are  not  merely  "immoral  and  un- 
worthy of  mankind,"  but  also  attempts  to  rob  man  of  his 
chief  good — the  right  to  risk  his  life  for  ideal  objects.  The 
German  people,  he  concludes,  must  learn  to  realize  that  the 
maintenance  of  peace  cannot  and  never  ought  to  be  the  aim  of 
politics. 

Perhaps  the  only  other  man  who  has  expressed  himself  so 
clearly  is  Ex-President  Roosevelt  in  America.  He  says 
that  he  despises  nations  and  human  beings  who  calmly  pocket 
insults,  and  does  not  admire  the  love  of  peace  of  timorous  per- 
sons, America,  he  continues,  if  she  is  to  play  a  part  in  this 
world  (sicl)  must  perform  those  sanguinary  deeds  of  heroism 
which  have  brought  glory  to  a  nation  in  the  past;  for  only 
in  war  can  a  nation  acquire  the  energy  which  is  necessary  in 
the  struggle  for  existence.  If,  on  the  contrary,  it  were  to  live 
in  peace  and  comfort,  it  must  give  way  before  other  nations 
which  have  not  yet  lost  the  valor  and  love  of  adventure  of  a 
true  man. 

All  which  is  nowadays  familiar  enough.  Roosevelt  does  not 
seem  to  have  let  any  trace  of  his  real  spirit  transpire,  and 
this  is  particularly  the  case  with  his  warlike  enthusiasm.  In- 
deed, it  all  reads  rather  like  an  electoral  speech.  The  sole 
source  of  satisfaction  seems  to  us  to  be  that  the  Americans 
obviously  think  differently  on  such  matters,  and  they  did  not 
reelect  ]\Iister  Roosevelt.^ 

It  is  plain,  however,  that  even  lately,  at  any  rate  before 
the  outbreak  of  hostilities,  delight  in  war  has  not  very  fre- 

1  1  translate  Dt.  Nicolai  in  full.  The  time  when  he  wrote  this  mui=> 
always  be  remembered.  The  notes  of  exclamation  in  the  citation  of 
Mr.  Roosevelt  are,  of  course,  the  author's. — Translator. 


TRANSFORMATION  IN  HUMAN  JUDGMENT      527 

quently  found  expression  in  literature ;  but  that  it  was  latent 
in  the  people  was  proved  only  too  clearly  by  their  general 
state  of  mind  after  August  4,  1914.  After  all,  such  people  as 
Bernhardi  merely  had  the  courage  to  say  what  thousands 
of  others  were  thinking,  sentiments  which  were  even  being 
vaunted  over  a  glass  of  beer,  only  in  an  undertone.  I  hope 
and  believe  that  Bernhardi 's  book  does  not  express  the  opin- 
ions of  the  best  Germans,  but  assuredly  it  expresses  those  of 
the  majority  and  of  the  most  influential.  His  views  are  the 
views  held  by  the  Pan-Germanists  and  by  members  of  the 
navy  and  of  the  defense  leagues.  Large  portions  of  the  popu- 
lation, indeed,  do  now  really  place  military  virtues  before  all 
others,  a  point  of  view  which  I  do  not  need  to  discuss,  since 
this  whole  book  was  written  to  oppose  it. 


CHAPTER  XV 
War  and  Religion 

1. — religion  and  love  of  peace 

§  188.— The  Older  Religions 

The  discrepancy  between  the  fact  of  war  and  dreams  of 
peace  never  appears  so  acute  as  when  we  consider  religious 
and  their  connection  with  war.  True,  the  oldest  religions  did 
not  much  feel  the  inconsistency  of  war  and  religion,  for  they 
created  a  special  divinity  for  each  category  of  emotions. 
Hence,  with  so  many  gods,  they  could  easily  set  a  god  of 
peace  side  by  side  with  a  god  of  war,  or  do  as  the  practical 
Romans  did,  and  arrange  to  have  a  two-headed  god,  who  was 
simply  turned  round  one  way  when  war  was  declared  and 
turned  round  the  other  way  when  peace  was  concluded.^ 

When  men  became  converted  to  the  worship  of  one  God 
only,  however,  Who  was  to  unite  all  attributes  in  Himself,  a 
certain  difficulty  arose;  but  it  has  seldom  happened  that  a 
religion  has  laid  down  its  military  aspirations  as  a  matter  of 
principle,  as  was  the  case  with  Mohammedanism,  for  instance. 
Islam,  indeed,  was  actually  invented  by  INIohammed  and  his 
warlike  men  of  Medina  for  the  express  purpose  of  waging  war, 
and  they  invented  their  new  rules  in  order  to  be  able  to  attack 
and  plunder  Mecca  even  in  the  holy  month.  This  religion 
never  shook  off  the  effects  of  its  origin  in  robbery,  and  just  as 

1  What  ia  here  said  about  the  two-headed  Janus,  whose  temple  was 
closed  on  the  conclusinn  of  peace,  is  only  symbolically  meant.  In  reality 
we  do  not  even  yet  clearly  understand  the  significance  of  .Janus.  It  is 
noteworthy,  moreover,  that  in  so  highly  civilized  a  country  as  Greece, 
Ares,  the  god  of  war,  had  virtually  no  temple,  and  there  are  very  few 
statues  of  him  extant. 

528 


WAR  AND  RELIGION  529 

Mohammed  could  always  ferret  out  some  verse  of  the  Koran 
to  prove  that  he  might  have  as  many  strange  women  as  he 
pleased/  so  he  invariably  contrived  to  find  texts  to  reconcile 
slavery  and  warfare  with  the  will  of  God.^  It  is  significant 
that  in  the  Koran  the  chapter  on  "The  Right  to  Own  Slaves" 
should  be  followed  by  the  chapter  on  the  "Right  to  i\Iake 
War";  and  again  it  is  only  too  plain  what  an  intimate  con- 
nection there  is  between  these  institutions.  It  was  the  re- 
sultant close  union  of  brute  force  and  priestly  fanaticism, 
culminating  in  the  harem,  the  regime  of  hosts  of  janissaries, 
and  the  slave-market  of  Aleppo,  on  which  the  strength  of  the 
Osman  Empire  depended.  , 

There  was  a  time  when  it  was  believed  that  this  Turkish 
trinity  was  inferior  to  the  Christian  trinity.  That  was  when 
Osman  armies  heavily  oppressed  Europe.  To-day  the  Turk 
is  outwardly  driven  back  almost  into  Asia,  but  morally  he  has 
conquered  Europe,  and  the  green  standard  of  the  prophet  is 
flying  invisible  over  every  house  in  which  there  is  talk  about 
that  "holy  war"  which  used  to  be  known  to  Islam  only. 
Formerly  other  religions  were  peaceful,  at  any  rate  in  theory, 
and  waged  war  only  in  practice.  Buddhism  and  Christianity 
in  particular,  however,  are  essentially  pledged  to  the  concep- 
tion of  the  prevalence  of  a  world-wide  harmony;  and  conse- 
quently for  them  war  must  be  an  anomaly,  as  it  were,  an 
infringement  of  their  principles.  Nevertheless,  all  have  come 
round  in  some  circuitous  fashion  to  approve  war,  as  we  shall 
prove  more  in  detail  as  far  as  Christianity  is  concerned. 

§  189. — The  Old  Testament  a  Jewish  National  Book. 

The  Old  Testament  saj^s  in  so  many  words,  "Thou  shalt  not 
Mil/'  This  commandment  is  older  and  more  sacred  than  the 
nine  others,   for   after  the   Flood,   when   God   made  a   new 

1  Cf.  Weil's  "Geschichte  der  islamitischen  V^iilker"  ("History  of 
Moslem  Peoples")  :  Stuttgart.  1866,  p.  11. 

'-i  .Just  as  Henry  VIII  of  England  introduced  the  Reformation  into 
England  in  order  to  marry  the  beautiful  Anne  Boleyn. 


530  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

covenant  with  Noah,  He  said,  "Whoso  sheddeth  man's  blood, 
by  man  shall  his  blood  be  shed''  (Genesis  ix,  6),  a  command 
which  is  repeated  many  times,  for  instance,  Exodus  xx,  13 ; 
xxi,  12;  xxi,  14;  and  in  Numbers  xxxv  God  says  that 
whoever  kills  any  one  with  an  instrument  of  iron  or  by 
throwing  a  stone  or  "with  an  hand  weapon  of  wood,"  "he  is  a 
murderer ;  the  murderer  shall  surely  be  put  to  death. "  ^  No 
mercy  is  to  be  shown,  for  "ye  shall  not  pollute  the  land 
wherein  ye  are :  for  blood  it  defileth  the  land :  and  the  land 
cannot  be  cleansed  of  the  blood  that  is  shed  therein,  but  by 
the  blood  of  him  that  shed  it. "  ^ 

Thus  taking  man 's  life  is  very  often  forbidden  in  the  Bible, 
but  according  to  the  sacred  writings  God  makes  from  the 
very  outset  a  clear  distinction  between  theory  and  practice, 
for  when  God  theoretically  by  his  new  covenant  with  Noah 
forbade  man  to  slay  his  neighbor,  he  had  in  practice  long 
Bince  sanctioned  fratricide.  Cain,  who  had  slain  his  brother 
Abel,  becomes  afraid,  thinking  he  will  be  forced  to  take  to 
flight,  for  he  will  be  killed  wherever  he  is  found.  The  Lord 
sets  his  fears  at  rest,  however.  "Whoever  slayeth  Cain,  ven- 
geance shall  be  taken  on  him  sevenfold."  (Genesis  iv,  15.) 
This  announcement  that  in  practice  murder  is  to  go  unpun- 
ished is  remarkable,  and  Cain  would  seem  to  have  been  the 
first  "murderer  pleasing  to  God,"  a  description  whicJi  now 
applies  in  the  main  to  soldiers  only.  In  this  connection  the 
fact  may  be  mentioned  that  modern  militarists — that  is, 
agrarians  and  iron  magnates — are  reputed  to  be  descendants 
of  Cain;  for  in  the  Bible  it  is  said  that  the  descendants  of 
Cain  are  "such  as  have  cattle,"  while  Tubal  Cain  was  "an 
instructor  of  every  artificer  in  brass  and  iron."  (Genesis, 
iv,  20-22.)  ^     It  is  not  whollj^  without  significance  that,  as 

1  Numbers,  xxxv,  16-18. 

2  Numbers,  xxxv,  .3.3. 

3  As  recently  aa  18.56  Pastor  Euen  (in  "Der  wisaenschaftliche  Mater- 
ialismus")  ("Materialism  Based  on  Natural  Science"):  Berlin,  p.  31) 
wrote  that  the  descendants  of  Lamech,  Jubal,  and  Tubal-Cain  (Cain's 
(sons)   all  went  the  same  way,  and  with  them  sin  increased.     Thus  even 


WAR  AND  RELIGION  531 

is  well  known,  the  breeding  of  cattle  makes  men  boorish,  and 
that  armorers  should  always  have  had  a  special  interest  in 
the  perpetuation  of  war. 

Apart  from  this  strange  story  of  Cain,  however,  murder  is 
forbidden  in  the  Bible,  and  very  sternh'  forbidden.  But — it 
is  only  the  murder  of  Jews.  As  is  natural,  considering  the 
period  from  which  it  dates,  the  Bible  is  absolutely  national  in 
character.  Only  the  Jew  is  really  considered  as  a  human 
being;  cattle  and  strangers  might  be  slain  without  the  slaj'er 
himself  being  slain.  In  this  ease  there  was  a  ransom.  Ac- 
cordingly, war  was  of  course  allowed  also,  and  the  Jews  were 
no  more  illogical  than  the  Moslem  who  kills  the  outlander. 
Of  late  years  the  Jews  and  the  Old  Testament  have  often  been 
reproached  for  their  contempt  for  those  who  were  not  Jews; 
and  in  practice  even  Christ  acted  in  precisely  the  same  way. 

§  190.— The  Brotherhood  of  Men 

There  is  this  difference,  however,  that  in  the  meantime, 
through  Christ  Jesus,  the  Jewish  national  church  has  become 
the  religion  of  mankind.  Since  Lessing  explained  the  pro- 
gressive character  of  religion  so  finely  in  his  "Erziehung  des 
Manschengeschlechtes"  ("Education  of  the  Human  Race"), 
thousands  of  apologists  for  Christianity  have  repeated,  with- 
out turning  a  hair,  that  "the  reason  why  the  Christian  faith 
is  the  highest  is  that,  like  heaven,  it  can  include  the  whole 
world,"  and  it  is  implied  that  such  a  faith  lays  certain  obli- 
gations on  those  who  hold  it. 

In  Christ's  time  the  old  principle  was  still  in  force,  that 
"he  that  killeth  with  the  sword  must  be  killed  with  the 
sword."  ^  Christ  himself  even  goes  further,  and  says  "All 
they  that  take  the  sword  shall  perish  with  the  sword."  -  St. 
John   says   that   "whosoever  hateth   his   brother   is   a  mur- 

after  such  a  long  period  as  this  Cain's  siu  is  considered  a  sin  by  the 
church. 

»  Revelation,  xiii,   10. 

'^  Matthew,  .\xvi,  52. 


532  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  AVAR 

derer"  ^;  and  St,  Matthew,  that  "whosoever  is  angry  with  his 
brother  without  a  cause  shall  be  in  danger  of  the  judgment."  ^ 
But  in  the  main  Christ  puts  the  duty  of  love  in  place  of  the 
right  of  vengeance.  We  are  most  familiar  with  this  new 
doctrine,  which  Christ  was  not  the  first  or  the  only  one  to 
proclaim,  from  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount ;  and  if  there  is  any- 
thing in  the  world  of  which  Christianity  may  be  proud,  it  is 
that  in  the  very  early  Christian  times  this  brotherhood  of  all 
men,  which  hitherto  had  been  advocated  by  only  a  few  phi- 
losophers, should  have  been  realized  by  the  mass  of  mankind. 

Since  the  days  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  there  ought  to 
have  been  no  more  wars,  for  "war  is  a  satire  on  the  New 
Testament."^  But  here  we  must  remember  that  even  if  to- 
day tlie  Sermon  on  the  Mount  is  no  longer  considered  as  the 
sole  source  of  all  morality,  nevertheless  for  two  thousand 
years  it  was  so,  and  European  Christianity  nuist  answer  for 
what  it  has  done  during  this  long  period  with  the  pound  of 
brotherly  love  entrusted  to  it. 

No  one  can  seriously  doubt  that  the  Christianity  of  the 
Gospels  was  not  only  peace-loving  both  in  its  ideas  and  its 
principles,  but  in  practice  wholly  opposed  to  war.  When 
Christ  says  He  came  not  to  send  peace  on  earth,  but  a  sword,* 
it  is  clear  from  the  context  that  all  He  means  is  that  conscien- 
tious scruples  would  and  were  meant  to  destroy  much  peace 
and  happiness. 

If  this  passage,  therefore,  is  not  an  incitement  to  actual 
warfare,  but  at  best  to  struggle,  all  other  new  Testament  pas- 
sages, but  most  of  all  those  which  Martin  Luther  ^  quoted  to 
justify  the  wars  of  his  day,  cannot  be  used  to  advocate  wars 

il,  St.  John,  iii,  15. 

2  Matthew,  v,  22. 

3  Diary  of  the  Emperor  Frederick  III,  1870. 

4  Matthew,  x,  34. 

5  "Ob  Kriegsleute  auch  in  einem  seeligen  Stande  sein  konnen," 
("Whether  soldiers  can  also  be  in  the  realms  of  the  blest"),  by  Martin 
Luther.  The  passages  Luther  quotes  in  justification  of  war  are  Romans, 
xiii;  I  Peter,  ii,  14;  Luke,  iii,  14;  and  John  xviii,  36. 


WAR  AND  RELIGION  533 

except  by  wholly  distorting  their  meaning.  They  all  mean, 
indeed,  just  the  contrarj^,  and  the  thirteenth  chapter  of  the 
Epistle  to  the  Romans  says  that  love  is  the  fulfilling  of  the 
law  (verse  10)  ;  in  the  first  Epistle  of  Peter  we  find  it  said 
(verse  19,  chap,  ii),  "for  this  is  thankworthy  if  a  man  for 
conscience  toward  God  endure  grief,  suffering  wrongfully"; 
in  Luke  (chap,  iii,  verse  14)  it  is  stated  outright  that  a  soldier 
must  "do  violence  to  no  man";  and  in  John's  Gospel  Christ 
says,  "My  kingdom  is  not  of  this  world:  if  my  kingdom  were 
of  this  world,  then  would  my  servants  fight."  (John  xviii, 
36.)  Thus  these  undoubtedly  hypocritical  quotations  of 
Luther  ^  go  directly  to  show  that  Gospels  and  the  early  Chris- 
tians were  eminently  opposed  to  w^ar. 

The  earliest  Christians  were  in  earnest  about  their  religion. 
They  courageously  refused  to  serve  in  the  army,  and  the 
Romans  consec[uently  persecuted  them.  As  peaceful  com- 
batants, intentionally  unarmed,  they  went  forth  to  meet  the 
lions  in  the  Roman  arena.  Even  in  Christian  writings  there 
is  a  great  deal  against  the  state,  and  in  the  early  days  this  was 
the  ease  with  official  writings  also,  whereas  now  it  is  so  only 
in  the  case  of  those  of  an  excommunicated  person  such  as 
Tolstoy  Thus  Tertullian  ^  condemns  any  participation  in  the 
services  of  the  state,  stigmatizing  military  service  in  particu- 
lar as  "the  service  of  the  devil";  while  Origen  ^  says  that  no 
servant  of  Almighty  God  may  take  up  arms,  and  that  no 
Christian  may  even  legally  carry  out  sentence  of  death  on  any 
one. 

1  I,  at  any  rate,  think  tliat,  despite  our  being  prejudiced  in  favor  of 
so  valiant  a  c-hanipion  of  God  as  Luther,  we  cannot  implicitly  admit  liis 
good  faith  when  we  find  such  sentences,  for  instance,  as  this:  "For 
snpposinjj  the  sword  to  have  been  a  wrong  thing  in  figliting,  so  would 
it  likewise  have  been  wrong  supposing  it  to  keep  the  peace." 

-  TertuUian's  "De  idolatria."     Cf.  also  "de  Corona  militis." 

3  Urigen'a  "Contra  Celsum,"  Libri  VIII,  III,  451. 


534  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 


2. — THE   DILUTION    OP    CHRISTIANITY 

§  191. — The  Practical  Compromise  Behveen  Christian  Doc- 
trine and  War 

But  this  was  not  for  long,  and  in  practice  men  soon  went 
over  into  the  camp  of  the  militarists.  Christ  could  not  quite 
abolish  the  sword  even  during  His  own  lifetime,  for  according 
to  the  Biblical  legend,  Simon  Peter  cut  off  the  ear  of  Malchus, 
the  high  priest's  servant,  and  had  Christ  not  intervened,  he 
would  probably  have  used  his  sword  still  more.  (John, 
xviii,  10,  11.)  But  it  was  Peter  whom  the  church  chose 
as  its  symbol,  and  it  was  from  the  chair  of  St.  Peter  that  that 
same  Christianity  at  whose  birth  the  angels  sang  "Peace  on 
earth"  was  converted  more  and  more  into  a  church  militant, 
until  Pope  Julius  II  finally  exchanged  his  pallium  for  armor. 
It  is  too  well  known  to  require  any  proof  that,  with  the  pos- 
sible exception  of  the  atrocities  of  such  a  man  as  Jenghiz  Khan, 
there  has  never  been  so  much  desolation  wrought  in  the  world 
with  poison,  fire,  and  sword  as  during  the  Christian  era,  partly 
by  the  Christian  church  itself,  through  the  Inquisition  and 
Courts  of  Inquisition,  and  partly  in  the  church's  name, 
through  the  crusades  against  the  Turks,  Albigenses,  Hussites, 
and  others,  and  through  the  religious  wars  of  the  sixteenth 
and  seventeenth  centuries.^ 

But  apart  from  this,  the  main  reason  why  enthusiasm  for 
war  attained  greater  dimensions  among  the  proud  white  civil- 
ized peoples  than  among  any  others  is  probably  that  at  a 
period  when  the  people  still  needed  a  religion  Christianity 
proved  unable  to  make  a  strong  enough  stand  against  the  mur- 
derous propensities  unchristian  in  the  truest  sense  of  the  word, 
of  the  mighty  men  of  this  world.     From  this  reproach  Chris- 

1  The  contemporary  German  philosopher  Max  Scheler,  it  is  true,  says 
in  his  war-book,  p.  208:  "In  reality  the  Ciiristian  world  knows  nothing 
of  any  such  institution  as  that  of  a  Holy  War  for  the  forcible  dis- 
semination of  the  Faith." 


WAR  AND  RELIGION  535 

tianity  -will  never  be  able  to  clear  itself.  Tiia  culpa,  tua 
maxima  culpa. 

So  cowardly  a  compromise  between  principles  and  practice 
cannot  be  approved,  but  it  is  understandable.  The  energy  in- 
spired by  a  new  conception  almost  always  dies  away  after 
the  death  of  those  who  watched  its  birth  and  were  transported 
by  enthusiasm  for  it.  The  Christians,  owing  to  long-con- 
tinued persecution,  became  weary  and  cowardly,  and  ceased 
to  refuse  to  kill,  if  ordered  to  do  so  by  the  state;  and  thus 
the  legions  of  Rome  actually  fostered  the  new  sect.  At  first 
Christ's  famous  precept,  "Render  therefore  unto  C«sar  the 
things  which  are  Ca'sar's,  and  unto  God  the  things  which  are 
God's,"  was  probably  obeyed,  in  the  belief  that  in  this  con- 
flict of  dut\'  a  "middle  course"  could  be  found.  But  it  was 
impossible  to  continue  in  this  w^ay ;  and  Constantine  by  a.  d. 
312  had  already  learned  to  pray  to  the  god  of  peace  for  vic- 
tory in  battle.  Twelve  years  afterward,  under  Sylvester  I 
(a.  D.  324),  when  the  Christian  Church  debased  itself  to  be- 
come a  state  church,^  it  was  all  over  with  the  peace  of  Chris- 
tianity. About  the  year  400,  INIars,  the  ancient  war  god,  was 
received  among  the  saints  and  called  Martinus,  and  it  was  not 
long  before  the  peaceful  missioriaries  of  the  first  centuries  of 
the  Christian  era  were  followed  by  others  who  made  conver- 
sions at  the  point  of  the  sword. 

These  conversions  began  in  the  Saxon  wars  of  Charlemagne, 
and  then,  probably  owing  to  the  Moslem  advance,  reached 
their  climax  in  the  crusades  and  the  Inquisition,  and  at  length 
gradually  dwindled  down  into  colonizing  missions  to  convert 
the  heathen,  and  into  powerful  home  missions,  which  in  turn 
gradually  degenerated  from  funeral  pyres  into  dragooning 
people  into  religion,  and  then  into  the  refined  irritation  of  at- 
tempting to  convert  them  by  exercising  a  purely  economic 
pressure  on  them.  Of  Russia  and  Germany  it  is  best  to  say 
nothing,  but  even  in  England  the  test  acts,  preventing  Roman 
Catholics  from  holding  public  oflfice  or  sitting  in  Parliament, 

1  Luke  .\.\',  25.     Also  Matthew,  x.\ii,  21,  and  Mark  xii,  17. 


536  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

Avere  not  abolished  until  1829.  A  Christianity  with  so  much 
must  about  it,  forcing  atheistical  university  professors  on  to 
their  knees  (and  in  Russia  making  them  absolutely  prostrate 
themselves),  plays  the  very  devil  with  all  true  religious  feel- 
ing. 

Among  heretics,  it  is  true,  some  remnant  of  the  old  spirit 
of  Christianity  still  survived;  and  the  modern  Manicheans 
and  Catharists,^  the  AValdensians "  and  Albigenses,^  the  IMo- 
ravians  *  and  Quakers  all,  in  their  best  days,  refused  military 
service. 

Thus  even  those  sects  the  essence  of  whose  doctrines  was  the 
refusal  of  military  service  gradually  degenerated.  To-day 
the  Mennonites  in  Germany,  the  Doukhobors  in  Russia,  the 
Paulicians,  the  Nazarenes,  and  whatever  all  their  names  may 
be,  are  lying  in  trenches  side  by  side  with  socialistic  free- 
thinkers, shooting  at  one  another.  In  their  views  of  the  world 
in  general  they  were  enemies,  in  their  belief  in  pacifism  they 
were  friends.  But  all  this  is  now  forgotten,  and  they  are  all 
alike  in  their  inconsistency'  in  joining  in  the  present  whole- 
sale slaughter. 

i\lenno  Simons,  the  founder  of  the  Mennonites,  who  died 
in  1561,  condemned  war  and  vengeance,  basing  his  condem- 
nation on  the  passages  in  St.  Matthew:     "All  they  that  take 

1  Cf .  Hahn's  "Geschichte  der  Ketzer  im  Mittelalter"  ("History  of  the 
Medieval  Heretics"),  1845.  [The  Catharists,  or  Cathari,  held  views  vir- 
tuallv  identical  with  those  of  the  Albigenses,  with  whom  they  were 
often  confounded,  and  in  whose  sufferings  they  shared.  They  held  that 
matter  is  intrinsically  evil,  and  that  men's  bodies  are  evil:  therefore 
they  aimed,  by  an  ascetic  life,  at  freeing  themselves  from  the  control 
of  the  body. — Translator.] 

2  Cf .  Dieckhoff's  "Die  Waldenser  im  Mittelalter"  ("The  Waldenses 
in  the  Middle  Ages"),  1853. 

3  According  to  Schmidt's  "Histoire  et  doctrine  de  la  sect6  des 
Cathares,"  even  "legitimate  self-defense"  was  forbidden  to  the  Al- 
bigenses. 

4  Tbe  best-kno\\'Ti  writers  of  the  Bohemian  Brethren  (or  Moravians) 
are  Peter  Chelcicky,  who  wrote  in  the  sixteenth  century,  and  Johann 
Amos  Comenius,  whose  chief  work  was  published  in  1639. 


WAR  AND  RELIGION  537 

the  sword  shall  perish  with  the  sword"  (xxvi,  52),  and 
"resist  not  evil"  (v,  39)  ;  and  for  centuries  his  disciples 
faithfiill}^  abided  by  his  teachings.  Even  in  1813  the  strength 
of  their  moral  convictions  was  still  so  great  that,  despite  the 
patriotic  excitement  of  that  year,  even  so  ruthless  a  soldier  as 
York  absolved  them,  by  rescript  dated  February  18,  from 
joining  the  territorials.  But  in  1915,  G.  Mannhardt,^  the 
preacher  of  the  Dansic  community  of  Mennonites,  actually  de- 
livered an  address  glorifj-ing  feats  of  arms  and  martial  heroes. 
Any  one'  who  impartially  compares  the  principles  of  church 
doctrine  with  church  practice  will  feel  no  surprise  that  the 
church  councils  should  have  forbidden  the  reading  of  the 
Bible,  and  we  can  only  rejoice  that  it  was  a  revealed  book  in 
the  most  orthodox  sense  of  the  term.  Otherwise  the  church 
would  not  merely  have  prohibited,  but  also  burned  it.- 

§  192. — The  Theoretical  Compromise  of  the  Middle  Ages 

Thus  in  practice  did  the  religion  of  love  gradually  become 
overlaid.  But  whereas  formerly  men  at  any  rate  felt  scruples 
about  allowing  this  to  happen,  and  finally  yielded  only  to 
pressure  from  without,  even  this  has  now  ceased  to  be  the 
case,  and  it  proves  how  little  influence  Christianity  really 
exerts  on  the  masses  that  it  is  to-day  considered  wholly  im- 
material whether  Christianity  is  peaceful  and  humane  or 
not.  What  has  Christian  love  to  do  with  us?  it  is  argued. 
We  are  good  soldiers  and  good  patriots ! 

This  indifference  to  the  claims  of  morality  is  worse  even 
than  religious  wars.  To  what  straits  the  few  persons  are 
driven  who  still  think  of  their  religion  at  all  appears  from  the 
following  poem,  published  in  the  "Generalanzeiger"  of  Bonn, 
when  trench  warfare  had  long  been  going  on,  with  varying 
fortune,  but  with  no  result : 

1  "Taten  und  Holden,  eine  Rede  zur  Kriegszeit"  ("Deeds  and  Heroes; 
a  War-Time  Address")  by  H.  G.  IMannhardt.  101.5. 

2  Karl  Lehrs'  "Kleine  Srhriften"  ("Minor  Works"),  1902.  P.  508. 
Lehrs  is  a  contemporary  German  philosopher. 


538  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

Warum  der  Kampf  jetzt  steht? 
Zum  heil  fiir  unsre  Sache! 
Dass  Dein  verlciscbt  Gebet 
Zu  neuer  Glut  erwache. 

Dein  Gott  die  Welt  durcheilt 
Und  audit  und  spabt  und  siehtet 
Ein  Volk,  das  ungeteilt 
Die  Herzen  auf  ilm  richtet. 

The  writer  therefore  quite  seriously  believes  that  Gott  is 
prolonging  the  present  slaughter  merely  in  order  to  see  which 
European  people  is  the  most  pious.  ("Why  do  we  still 
fight?"  He  asks,  and  answers:  "For  the  sake  of  our  good 
cause!")  A  conception  of  God  which  is  assuredly  fit  only 
for  a  pickle-herring  farce  or  perhaps  for  a  worshiper  of 
Moloch. 

Originally,  at  any  rate,  Christian  philosophy  was  peaceful 
in  principle,  and  the  doctrine  that  war  is  consistant  with 
man's  natural  state  was  directly  opposed  by  some,  who  then 
inclined  to  accept  the  Biblical  conception  of  paradise.  I  do 
not  purpose  to  discuss  in  detail  the  extensive  number  of  works 
by  scholars  on  this  subject,  but  I  should  like  to  quote  the  words 
of  Alberic  Gentilis,^  who  expressly  asserts  that  "no  war  ever 
came  about  naturally"  {a  naturd  helium  esse  nullum). 
Whenever  war  was  going  on,  it  was  looked  upon  as  a  work 
of  the  devil  or  a  "Divine  chastisement,"  and  accepted  as 
calmly  as  was  the  devil. 

Thus  with  the  help  of  a  little  sacerdotal  duplicity  the  diffi- 
culty was  solved,  and  all  went  well  until  it  was  desired  to 
reconcile  monistically  that  contrast  between  war  and  Chris- 
tianity which  the  plain  man  could  not  but  feel.  So  long  as 
peace  was  sought  in  a  remote  past  or  only  hoped  for  in  a 
far  distant  future,  perhaps  only  in  heaven,  the  inconsistency 
could  be  ignored ;  but  when  it  was  asserted  that  peace  ought 
also  to  prevail  in  the  present,  then  the  time-honored  longing 

1  Albericus  Gentilis,  "De  jure  belli  libri  tres/'  I.  15,  1558. 


WAR  AND  RELIGION  539 

for  peace  could  not  fail  to  degenerate  into  the  grotesque  con- 
ception formed  by  the  masses  of  Leibnitz's  "harmony  in  the 
best  of  worlds."  On  the  other  hand,  those  who,  like  Vol- 
taire's Candide,  declined  to  continue  crying  peace,  peace, 
when  there  was  no  peace,  simply  denied  that  such  a  thing  as 
peace  was  possible;  and  asserted  that  everything  centered 
round  the  struggle  for  existence. 

Finally  ever}^  ideal  was  abandoned,  and  men  fell  back  upon 
a  vague,  shadowy  electicism.  They  ceased  to  see,  as  old 
Heraclitus  saw,  that  the  object  to  strive  for  was  successive 
evolution  from  war,  as  the  father  of  all,  to  peace.  They  went 
almost  blindly  from  war  to  peace,  and  from  peace  to  war,  and 
it  is  felt  to  be  almost  illogical  that  those  who  insist  on  the 
value  of  life  and  likewise  all  friends  of  peace,  and  even  re- 
ligious people,  should  long  since  have  become  reconciled  to 
war  as  to  something  natural  and  inevitable. 

§  193. — The  Theoretical  Compromise  of  Modern  Times 

Not  till  the  Reformation,  probably  under  the  influence  of 
Luther,  did  men  begin  to  justify  war  theoretically  also,  from 
the  Christian  point,  of  view.  To  most  people,  however,  war 
still  did  not.  seem  exactly  a  Christian  institution,  despite  its 
being  systematically  decked  out  with  Christian  symbols. 
Thus  army  chaplains*  (or  their  equivalent)  were  appointed, 
flags  and  cannon  were«conseerated  by  priests,  and  battle-ships 
were  baptized.  Hume,  indeed,  still  maintains  ^  that  between 
a  soldier  and  a  priest  there  is  an  eternal  and  unvarying  con- 
tradiction. For  the  time  being,  indeed,  the  conception  of 
Christianity  had  merely  been  "enlarged,"  somewhat  after  the 
manner  of  the  great  and  unprejudiced  King  of  Priissia  -  who 
remarked  that  he  considered  whoever  helped  him  as  a  Chris- 
tian, and  whoever  meant  to  injure  him  as  merely  a  heathen. 

1  Hume's  '"E'^sjiy  on  National  Characters."  Philosophical  Works, 
Edinburgh,  1826.     Vol.  Til,  p.  22.'i. 

-  "Uber  (lie  Bcislieit  dt-r  Menachen"  ("On  Human  Wickedness").  By 
Frederick  II,  written  November  11,  1761. 


540  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

But  this  "enlargement"  of  the  conception  of  Christianity 
had  not  yet  led  to  its  abolition.  For  instance,  Charles 
Kingslej^  in  his  defense  of  the  Crimean  War  as  a  "just  war 
against  tja'ants  and  oppressors,"  wrote  that  Our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  is  not  only  the  prince  of  peace,  but  also  the  prince  of 
war  and  the  lord  of  armies.  Whoever  fights  in  a  just  war 
against  tyranny  and  oppression,  he  added,  is  fighting  for 
Christ,  and  Christ,  as  captain  and  colonel,  is  fightmg  for  him ; 
for  so  it  is  written  in  the  Bible.  But  though  he  found  many 
to  agree  with  him,  Tom  Hughes,  for  instance,  yet  on  the  whole 
people  disagreed  profoundly  with  him.  In  excuse  for  Kings- 
ley  it  may  be  argued  that  these  words  were  written  during 
war,  that  is,  while  the  hypnotic  effects  of  war  were  being  felt. 

But  the  wheel  of  time  revolved  rapidly,  and  scarcely  half  a 
century  after  the  Crimean  War  the  main  conception  of 
Christianity,  after  vainly  endeavoring  for  two  thousand  years 
to  get  possession  of  the  world,  had  so  utterly  disappeared, 
and  the  illogical  absurdity  of  "Christian  warfare"  had  so 
thoroughly  taken  possession  of  mankind  bod}'  and  soul,  that 
now  nothing  any  longer  surprises  us.  Here  and  there  a 
Christian  theologian  still  attempts  to  combat  this  new  Chris- 
tianity, as  was  notably  the  case  with  Herr  Rade  of  ^Marburg, 
whose  proud  saying  about  Belgium,  "I  openly  defy  any  one 
to  approve  of  what  we  have  done  there,"  will  never  be  for- 
gotten any  more  than  will  be  his  phrase,  "the  bankruptcy  of 
Christianity. ' '  But  it  is  the  Gottfried  Traubs  and  Immanuel 
Heyns  who  preponderate,  in  proof  of  which  I  will  adduce  only 
two  facts.  Professor  Baumgarten,^  the  theologian  of  Kiel, 
does,  it  is  true,  note  the  contradiction  between  the  martial 
ethics  of  the  Gennan  nation  and  the  Sermon  on  the  IMount, 
but  tells  us  that  "at  the  present  time  we  ought  to  pay  more 
attention  again  to  Old  Testament  texts,"  and  smilingly  and 
consciously    throws    Christianity    overboard.     Secondly,    the 

1  Baumgarten's  "Twenty-ninth  German  Address  for  Serious  Times." 
See  the  "Berliner  Tageblatt"  of  May  13,  1915. 


WAR  AND  RELIGION  541 

German  pastor  and  theologian  Artur  Brausewetter  ^  writes 
that  "we  never  knew  what  the  Holy  Ghost  was  till  this 
year  of  war,  1914." 

But  in  Prussia  probably  they  could  not  do  otherwise  than 
write  thus.  Did  not  the  President  of  the  Prussian  Chamber 
of  Deputies  ~  a  short  time  before  call  the  House  to  order  and 
upbraid  those  who  described  war  as  an  outrage  on  Christian- 
ity? And  long  before  this  did  not  a  mighty  man  of  to-day 
venture  to  say,  without  any  one  protesting,  that  only  a  good 
Christian  could  he  a  good  soldier,  even  as  a  great  German 
philosopher  recently  stated  in  a  lecture  on  the  war  that  only 
a  good  Kantian  could  he  a  good  soldier?  And  yet  when  Christ 
was  born  choirs  of  angejs  sang  "peace  on  earth."  And  yet 
Kant  wrote  his  wondrous  plea  for  "perpetual  peace."  ^ 

8. — THE   WATERING    DOWN   OF    K-VNT    AND   BUDDHA 

§  194.— T/(^  Misuse  of  Kant 

The  way  Kant  has  been  misused  is  even  more  repellent  to- 
day than  the  way  religion  has  been  misused.  It  is,  however, 
typical  of  the  whole  miserable  business  of  the  compromise  be- 
tween religion  and  war,  and  therefore  I  cannot  but  refer 
briefly  to  it.  Some  of  those  who  thus  misinterpret  Kaut  must 
be  presumed  to  have  read  his  writings.  They  know,  there- 
fore, that  in  his  preliminary  articles  Kant  would  forbid  the 
following : 

1. — Peace  treaties  which  contain  the  seeds  of  future  wars. 

1  "Pfingstbetrachtung"  ("Whitsuntide  Reflections")  by  Pastor  Aitiir 
Brausewetter.  Published  in  the  '"Weserzeitung"  No.  24,  (i4!),  ot  May 
23,  1915. 

2  Herr  von  Erflfa  in  the  seventh  year  of  grace,  1012. 

3  This  same  German  philosopher,  Herrmann  Cohen,  in  a  volume  writ- 
ten in  collaboration  witli  Houston  Stewart  Chamberlain,  wrote  what 
was  obviously  intended  to  be  a  work  in  support  of  the  ideas  of  his. 
great  master.  But  while  Kant  lioped  and  longed  for  "perpetual  peace," 
his  disciple  has  already  had  enough  and  more  than  enough  of  it,  and 
turns  his  back  on  it  accordinglj'. 


542  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

2. — Annexations  (even  in  the  form  of  voluntary  cession  of 
territory). 

3. — Standing  armies. 

4. — Loans  for  purposes  of  armaments. 

5. — Interventions  (interference  in  the  concerns  of  foreign 
states). 

"What  Kant  would  like  to  see  established  are  the  following: 

1. — The  republican  form  of  government  in  all  countries.^ 

2. — A  federation  of  free  states  only. 

3. — Citizenship  of  the  world  (in  the  form  of  universal  hos- 
pitality). 

They  know,  therefore,  that  in  the  war  which  the  Kingdom 
of  Prussia  fought  against  the  Republic  of  France,  Kant  had 
the  courage  openly  and  unreservedly  to  champion  the  enemy's 
institutions.  Further,  they  know  that  we  in  Germany  to- 
day have  not  yet  attained  one  of  Kant's  eight  objects;  and 
yet  they  appeal  to  Kant  more  than  to  an}^  one  else. 

It  might  be  possible  to  connect  the  moral  regeneration  of 
Prussia,  which  culminated  in  the  Wars  of  Liberation,  with 
Kant.  Indeed,  even  he,  old  man  as  he  was,  might  have 
shouldered  a  rifle  to  fight  for  what  the  people  then  achieved 
and  above  all  for  what  the  best  men  of  that  day  hoped  to 
achieve,  unless  he  had  been  wiser  than  the  1813  idealists  and 
had  known  from  the  first  that  an  ideal  can  never  be  attained 
by  force  of  arms.  But  apart  from  this,  does  any  one  really 
believe  that  the  ideas  of  a  man  who  formulated  the  above 
eight  demands  can  be  consistently  quoted  by  the  Germans  as 
their  main  justification  for  the  War  of  1914? 

But  they  say  that  Kant  knew  nothing  about  war.  As  if 
any  one  needed  to  understand  anything  about  the  methods  of 
a  Rinaldo  Rinaldini  in  order  to  condemn  robbery  as  immoral! 

1  The  contemporary  German  philosopher  Max  Scheler,  on  pacfe  23  of 
liis  hook  on  llie  war,  says  that  in  tlie  nineteenth  century  "Republics 
wa<;ed  far  more  wars  than  monarchies";  hut  it  is  hard  to  know  ex- 
actly what  he  means  by  this,  for  the  great  military  powers  of  Europe  to- 
day are,  with  the  sole  exception  of  France,  monarchies,  and  France  did 
nut  become  a  republic  again  till  1870. 


WAR  AND  RELIGION  543 

In  order  to  understand  this  kind  of  controversy,  we  must 
reflect  that  modern  critics  of  Kant  are  people  over  whom  a 
complete  change  came  the  moment  the  cannon's  roar  was 
heard,  and  who  obviously  think  everybody  else  can  veer  round 
about  with  the  same  facility.  Thus  they  think  that  the  Kant- 
ian Hamlet  is  mad  only  about  peace  when  the  wind  is  north- 
northwest,  but  whenever  it  shifts  to  the  south,  he  can  dis- 
tinguish a  legitimate  war  from  an  illegitimate.  These 
Rosencrant/.-and-Ciuildenstern-like  military  philosophers  think 
that  they  can  entice  any  tune  they  happen  to  need  out  of  the 
Kiinigsberg  flute,  and  quite  seriously  imagine  that  they  can 
exploit  the  conception  of  duty  of  the  "half-cracked  apostle  of 
peace"  in  order  to  inveigle  him  into  the  service  of  the  army. 
The  Prussian  army,  they  say,  in  short,  is  Kantian  because  it 
is  the  living  incarnation  of  Kant's  sense  of  duty. 

Now,  however  high  a  value  we  may  set  on  an  army 's  sense 
of  dut.y  in  the  literal  meaning  of  the  term,  this  merely  means 
tliat  we  respect  the  individual  soldiers  as  human  beings. 
7?ut  for  us  all  that  can  matter,  for  us  Kantians  all  that  ought 
to  matter,  is  whether  the  army  as  a  whole  is  doing  its  duty 
in  Kant's  sense,  not  in  letter,  but  in  spirit.  That  is  whether, 
in  the  sense  of  Kant's  philosophy,  fitting  up  human  beings 
for  the  purpose  of  war  is  an  object  worth  striving  for. 
Kant  himself  has  supplied  a  sufficiently  clear  answer  to  his 
question  not  merely  in  his  peace  manifesto,  which  was  not 
the  outcome  of  any  mere  passing  fancy,  but  in  the  logical  in- 
ference from  his  whole  moral  teaching.  Is  it  not  at  once 
obvious  that  of  all  conceivable  moral  maxims  none  could  be 
so  unsuited  to  war  a.s  the  injunction,  "act  so  that  thy  ac- 
tion might  become  a  universal  maxim"?  For  if  I  shoot  an 
enemy,  I  cannot  do  so,  according  to  Kant,  unless  I  also  desire 
him  to  shoot  me. 

Kant's  philosophy  is  absolutely  irreconcilable  with  wiv. 
True,  Kant  himself  once^  called  war  sublime,  in  a  passage 
which  is  quoted  by  Scheler  and  which,  especially  in  a  popu- 

i"Kritik  der  Urteilskrait"   ("Critique  of  Pirre  Reason")   §28. 


544  THE  BIOLOaY  OF  WAR 

lar  book,  might  easily  mislead  people  into  thinking  that  Kant 
approved  of  war,  unless  it  be  added  that  what  Kant  calls 
sublime  is  the  subject  of  negative  pleasure,  a  fact  of  which 
probably  only  a  very  few  who  read  Scheler  have  any  no- 
tion. Moreover,  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  his  particular 
sentence  is  given  as  an  instance  in  a  discussion  of  the  sub- 
lime in  nature.  Not  till  five  years  later,  when  the  French 
Revolution  had  taught  him  that  nations  could  be  free,  and 
are  therefore  responsible  as  nations  for  their  actions,  did 
Kant  write  his  "Perpetual  Peace"  manifesto,  in  which  he 
dealt  with  war  as  a  moral  problem.  But  then,  in  1790,  war 
still  appeared  to  him  in  the  light  of  a  fate  from  which  there 
is  no  escape — a  fate  caused  by  princes  with  their  subjects, 
and  with  which  the  people  were  bound  to  put  up  as  with 
some  natural  event.  War  thus  seemed  to  him  a  part  of  na- 
ture. 

Now,  according  to  Kant,  nature  can  absolutely  never  be 
sublime.  If  we  call  it  sublime,  this  merely  means,  according 
to  Kant,  that  we  human  beings  are  aroused  to  sublime 
thoughts  by  the  very  contrast  between  us  and  nature,  what 
he  calls  negative  pleasure.  If  we  perceive  the  unconsciously 
terrible  aspects  of  nature  and  yet  feel  that  as  moral  beings 
we  are  superior  to  any  such  compulsion,  then  we  apply  the 
%vord  sublime  to  what  is  evoked  in  us  by  this  feeling. 
"Something  otherwise  without  form  or  purpose,"  which 
"merely  strikes  terror  into  the  ordinary  human  being,"  is 
sublime  to  the  philosopher,  if  he  is,  which  Kant  insists  on 
as  important,  himself  in  safety  and  therefore  does  not  "look 
upon  such  an  occurrence  as  anything  before  which  man  need 
quail. ' ' 

Now  we  can  understand  why  Kant  calls  war  sublime. 
For  that  matter,  indeed,  all  he  actually  says  is  that  "even 
war  has  something  sublime  about  it";  and  he  really  looks 
upon  it  as  an  unconsciously  terrible  event,  w^hich  he  did  not 
then  think  it  possible  to  avert,  but  which  he  even  then  ad- 
mits had  no  power  over  him.     There  is  nothing  here  incon- 


WAR  AND  RELIGION  545 

sistent  with  perpetual  peace;  it  is  merely  the  preliminary 
groping  after  it.  It  is  already  liberation  from  war,  though 
not  yet  its  conquest. 

But  it  is  Kant  or  war.  There  is  no  possibility  of  recon- 
ciling both,  although  in  itself  this  need  not  abate  any  one's 
enthusiasm  for  war,  for,  after  all,  Kant  is  not  the  Alpha 
and  Omega  of  all  wisdom.  But  the  Kantiaus  ought  to  have 
more  fidelity  to  Kant,  and  above  all  to  be  truer  to  their  own 
selves.  Any  one,  indeed,  who,  faced  by  such  facts,  does  not 
lose  faith  in  the  supremacy  of  human  reason  must  needs  be 
very  sanguine. 

§  195. — The  Compromise  of  Buddhism 

I  have  already  referred  to  the  virtual  identity  of  Buddhism 
as  regards  its  main  doctrine  of  human  brotherhood  with 
Christianity.  Buddha  also  speaks  in  simple  language  of  the 
brotherhood  of  men,  of  the  sacredness  of  life,  and  of  love  and 
pity.  His  doctrine  is  neither  harder  nor  easier  to  under- 
stand than  that  of  Christ,  but  it  seems  to  have  met  with  a 
somewhat  better  fate.  When  Christ  w^as  about  to  die,  Peter 
seized  his  sword;  and  when  Buddha  died  and  was  cremated, 
there  immediately  appeared,  according  to  the  Acvagoshas,^ 
the  princes  of  seven  countries,  with  mighty  armies,  in  front 
of  Kucinagara,  to  take  possession  of  his  ashes.  But  when 
the  Brahman  Drona  tells  them  that  "every  believer  commit- 
ting a  hostile  act  is  sinning  against  the  principle  of  his  faith," 
they  come  to  an  understanding ;  and  in  general  the  Buddhists 
really  have  lived  much  more  at  peace  than  their  brethren  in 
Christ. 

After  Schopenhauer's  glorification  of  Buddhism,  quite 
excusable  in  view  of  the  state  of  knowledge  of  his  day, 
Buddha's  tolerance  and  love  of  peace  were  certainly  for  a 
considerable  time  greatly  exaggerated.  As  long  ago  as  the 
seventeenth  century  the*  Buddhist  priests  of  Japan  had  en- 
tered into  a  close  alliance  with  the  major-domo's  office  under 

1  Acvagoshas;  "Buddha's  Life  and  Deeds." 


546  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

the  Tokugawa  to  destroy  non-Buddhists ;  and  to-day,  when 
the  Mongols  are  aroused  from  their  supposed  slumber,  even 
the  East  has  begun  not  merely  to  tolerate  murder,  but,  what 
is  even  worse,  hypocritically  to  justify  it. 

When  Japan  had  fought  out  her  great  war  with  Russia,  a 
few  faithful  Buddhists  may  perhaps  have  protested,  but 
Soyen  Shaku,^  one  of  the  highest  Buddhist  dignitaries  in  Ja- 
pan, wrote  as  follows  in  justification  of  the  war:  "Buddha 
once  said  'the  world  in  its  triple  form  belongs  to  me;  all 
things  in  it  are  my  children,  and  all  are  the  image  of  my 
Ego,  for  all  come  from  one  origin,  and  are  thus  parts  of  my 
body.  Hence  I  cannot  rest  so  long  as  the  smallest  particle 
of  everything  existing  has  not  fulfilled  its  destination.'  " 

And  on  this  last  sentence,  imbued  through  and  through 
with  anxious,  pitying  and  world-embracing  love,  this  mod- 
ern disciple  of  Buddha  has  contrived  to  base  his  martial  en- 
thusiasm. He  argues  as  follows:  Buddha  himself  says  that 
everything  which  exists  has  not  yet  fulfilled  its  destiny. 
Therefore  the  world  is  not  as  it  ought  to  be.  ]\Iany  a  hu- 
man being,  even  now,  is  ruined  and  cheated,  and  becomes 
wicked  through  ignorance.  Against  this  ignorance  wc 
Buddhists  must  wage  war.  All  which  is  comprehensible,  and 
certainly  what  Buddha  meant;  but,  according  to  Soyen 
Shaku,  Buddha's  disciples  ought  to  rid  the  world  of  ignorance 
not  by  instructing  it,  but  by  cannons,  and  ought  in  fact  to 
wage  a  merciless  war  to  the  knife.  ' '  They  shall  exterminate 
the  roots  whence  all  misfortune  arises." 

Not  that  Soyen  Shaku  is  to  be  reproached  for  defending 
war,  but  what  is  repellent  is  the  hypocrisy  with  which  he 
twists  the  meaning  of  the  teachings  of  his  god. 

Heine  said  only  that  the  priest  and  the  rabbi  both  stink 
alike.  To-day  we  may  confidently  include  the  bonze  as  well, 
for  all  have  bowed  the  knee  to  Baal,  that  great  IMoloch  who 
swallows  up  hecatombs  of  human  bodies. 

1  "Buddhist  Views  of  War,"  by  Soyen  Shaku  in  the  "Open  Court" 
for  Mav,  1904. 


WAR  AND  RELIGION  547 

It  would  not  matter  about  the  words  of  such  men  as  Christ, 
Buddha,  and  Kant  having  been  wrenched  from  their  true 
meaning,  for  there  have  always  been  weak  characters;  but 
what  does  matter  is  that  no  one  blushes  scarlet  or  is  even 
wrathy  about  it.  It  almost  seems  as  if  mankind  had  long  been 
content  not  to  be  able  to  make  theories  agree  with  practice. 
Quite  apart  from  whether  war  is  good  or  bad,  it  is  accepted 
as  a  necessary  fact,  which  may  indeed  be  discussed,  but  which 
no  one  feels  morally  strong  enough  to  get  rid  of  or  even  to 
alter.  It  is  as  if  war  was  not  the  work  of  man,  which  could 
be  influenced  by  educating  men,  but  a  product  of  nature, 
against  which  there  is  no  rising  up. 

There  are  still  men  who  feel  in  what  a  painful  dilemma 
their  illogical  train  of  thought  has  landed  them,  but  even  they 
are  now  hardly  waiting  for  some  Alexander  to  cut  this 
Gordian  knot  of  contradictions  for  tliem.  They  and  their 
reason  have  both  long  surrendered  to  supposed  facts. 

3. — THE   NEW    RELIGION 

§  196. — The  Meaning  of  Every  Religion 

It  cannot  be  that  any  religion  aims  at  causing  men  to 
believe  in  the  unreality  of  an  abstract  or  even  concrete  con- 
ception of  God  or  at  supporting  the  power  of  some  church 
or  other.  If  there  is  any  justification  at  all  for  religion, 
this  can  be  only  to  procure  for  man  what  is  ethicaUy  valua- 
ble; that  is,  in  plain  language,  to  increase  man's  respect  for 
the  dignity  of  his  fellow-man  and  tend  to  promote  brother- 
liness. 

Now,  this  is  just  where  all  religions  have  failed,  and  their 
failure  is  attested  by,  among  other  things,  the  fact  that,  as 
I  have  shown,  they  have  all  come  to  deny  brotherliness ;  in 
other  words,  to  sanction  war. 

For  this  failure  of  religions  there  is  a  natural  cause.  The 
word  religion  is  derived  from  religere  to  bind,  and  all  re- 
ligion is  rooted  in  tradition,  and  binds  man  to  something  old 


548  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

and  sacred  which  has  been  handed  down  to  him ;  that  is,  to 
the  past.  Religion,  therefore,  is  of  necessity  unable  to  adapt 
itself  to  new  conditions,  and  despite  all  that  may  be  hoped 
from  the  future,  it  is  in  its  very  nature  retrospective.  We 
may  found  new  religions  and  protest  against  existing  re- 
ligions, but  to  the  very  name  of  religion  there  clings  a  trace 
of  the  curse  of  constraint.  The  utmost  any  one  has  ever 
succeeded  in  doing  is  to  pour  new  wine  into  old  wineskins,  to 
adapt  new  doctrine  to  an  old  form.  But  it  is  often  said, 
and  not  without  reason,  that  this  in  itself  would  not  matter 
so  much,  for  new  wine  improves  in  flavor  and  quality  by  be- 
ing put  into  old  wineskins,  if  mankind  in  general  only  did 
Hot  continue  to  cling  to  outside  matters,  and  always  attach 
too  much  importance  to  them  in  comparison  with  what  is 
within.  Every  religion  therefore  must  dwindle  down  into 
dogmatism,  and  in  course  of  time  obstruct  further  progress. 
Without  being  in  some  way  or  other  bound,  however,  no  one 
can  act  morally.  True,  a  man  can  freely  impose  restrictions 
on  himself,  but  he  must  believe  in  some  sort  of  law  or  being 
which  is  higher  than  himself,  and  which  guides  him. 

Yet  no  one  should  endeavor  to  believe  in  anything  if  he 
knows  that  it  has  no  real  existence.  Thus  any  one  who  does 
not  know  that  the  good  God  has  no  real  existence  may  de- 
rive his  morality  from  Him,  nay,  can  and  ought  to  do  so. 
But  any  one  who  does  know  that  God  does  not  exist,  and 
yet  forges  for  himself  some  fanciful  notion  of  force  which 
he  defines  as  God  is  acting  foolishly ;  and  in  this  sense  the 
most  innocent  idolator  is  far  more  reasonable  than  many 
deeply  learned  philosophers. 

Let  there  be  no  confusion  about  this.  That  undefinable 
aspiration  which  tells  all  good  human  beings  that  there  is 
something  higher  than  their  own  petty  selves,  that  there  is 
a  starry  firmament  and  a  moral  law,  is  the  highest  sentiment 
which  man  can  feel ;  and  if  only  he  does  feel  it,  this  is  quite 
enough.  But  it  is  folly — may  I  be  pardoned  for  so  appar- 
ently harsh  a  word? — to  attempt  to  consolidate  this  unde- 


WAR  AND  RELIGION  549 

finable  aspiration  into  something  of  which  we  know  has  no 
existence. 

Now,  let  us  inquire  what  such  a  basis  of  morality  must  be 
like,  absolute  and  yet  mutable,  above  humanity  and  yet  hu- 
man, ideal  and  yet  real.  This  is  antinoraistic  philosophy, 
and  yet  some  such  thing  there  is  which  fulfils  all  these  re- 
quirements : 

That  thing  is  humanity. 

§  197. — The  Religion  of  Humanity 

If  it  were  desired  to  found  a  religion  which  is,  so  to  speak, 
unchangeable  in  its  eternal  youth  and  yet  capable  of  modi- 
fication, so  as  to  meet  the  needs  of  mankind,  then  it  must  be 
based  on  something  unchangeable  and  yet  capable  of  change. 
We  know,  and  we  need  not  here  repeat,  that  there  is  per- 
haps nothing  really  absolute  in  itself,  but  it  is  a  common- 
place to  say  that  for  us  men  man  himself  is  something  absolute. 
Our  organization,  with  all  its  different  ways  of  comprehend- 
ing the  outer  world, — man,  that  is,  together  with  his  sur- 
roundings,^ is  for  us  an  actual  tangible  fact,  a  fact  which, 
it  is  true,  progresses,  which  in  the  course  of  centuries  ha.s 
altered,  and  in  the  course  of  countless  thousands  of  years  will 
alter  again,  but  which  at  any  particular  moment  represents 
for  us  something  absolute. 

Humanity,  therefore,  is  sufficiently  absolute  and  mutable 
for  our  purposes.  Moreover,  it  also  rises  above  man  and  is 
yet  human. 

Humanity  has  evolved  and  is  evolving  still  further,  in  a 
course  and  direction  which  may  be  chance,  but  which  has 
been  fixed  once  for  all.  We  were  animals,  and  we  became 
human  beings,  and  the  human  being  of  to-morrow  is  some- 
thing different  from  the  human  being  of  to-day,  albeit  the 
one  may  be  potentially  contained  in  the  other. 

Thus  the  superman  is  nothing  new,  but  merely  something 

1  Cf.  "Umwelt  und  Innenwelt  der  Tiere"  ("The  Surrounding  and 
Ideas  of  Animals";,  by  J.  von  UexkUll:  Berlin,  190!). 


550  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

different.  It  is  idle  to  speculate  whether  this  evolution  is 
good.  It  is  a  fact,  and  therefore  to  oppose  it  is  folly  and,  it 
might  even  be  said,  criminal.  Animals  and  man,  and  in  the 
future  -the  superman,  are  all  one,  only  united  together  by 
time.  Consequently  even  the  superman  is  and  remains  some- 
thing purely  human,  even  if  he  is  above  man. 

Similarly  man  and  superman  are  one,  if  the  superman  is 
considered  as  uniting  in  himself  all  actually  living  human 
beings,  as  the  totality  of  mankind,  in  short.  Thus  we  have 
unity  in  space.  Hence  the  conception  of  the  superman  in 
time  and  space  transcends  the  individual  human  being, 
and  yet  remains  a  human  being.  Finally,  however,  the 
conception  of  humanity  is  both  real  and  ideal  at  the  same 
time. 

An  attempt  has  been  made  to  prove  that  humanity  is  ob- 
jectively a  reality;  but  for  us  it  is  an  idea,  for  as  we  are 
only  a  part  of  it  both  as  regards  time  and  space,  we  do  not 
possess  the  necessary  organs  to  enable  us  fully  to  compre- 
hend it.  For  us  it  remains  the  idea  of  a  perfecting  process 
which,  taken  as  a  whole,  effects  on  a  large  scale  ''what  the 
best  human  being  does  or  would  fain  do  on  a  small  scale." 
"We  are  uplifted  by  the  wave,  sucked  under  by  it,  and 
sink";  but  without  the  conception  of  the  "eternal  stream" — 
the  onward-flowing  stream  of  humanity — it  is  inconceivable 
that  this  should  be  so. 

Thus  humanity  fulfils  all  the  conditions  for  the  basis  of 
a  lasting  religion.  This,  after  all,  need  hardly  be  said,  and 
every  great  thinker  of  the  past  who  has  yearned  for  a  re- 
ligion has  found  it  within  himself.  Modern  science  has  also 
shown  that  even  the  most  primitive  peoples  did  likewise,  for 
in  the  likeness  of  man  did  men  make  their  gods.  But 
men  gave  a  more  or  less  absolute  life  to  these  creations  in  the 
image  of  God,  or,  in  the  case  of  higher  human  beings,  divine 
conceptions.  This  life  thus  became  independent  of  what 
takes  place  in  ourselves  and  thus  the  danger  inevitably  arose 
and   constantly   recurred   of   these   divine   images   becoming 


WAR  AND  RELIGION  551 

stark  corpses  no  longer  capable  of  taking  part  in  the  life  of 
men. 

§  198. — Uniformity  of  Moral  Law 

Whoever  would  fain  have  a  real  religion  must  base  it  in 
the  reality  of  man  and  not  on  visionary  ideals.  The  natural 
result  of  this  ever-changing  human  reality,  which  in  course 
of  time  becomes  ever  more  and  more  perfect,  is  that  the  fu- 
ture will  seem  to  us  an  ever  higher  reality,  in  which  we  can 
believe,  on  which  we  may  legitimately  set  our  affections,  and 
to  which  we  must  pin  our  hopes.  The  three  cardinal  virtues 
of  Christianity  are  in  truth  the  main  supports  of  every  true 
religion ;  but  we  must  not  believe  in  anything  unreal,  nor 
set  our  affections  on  anything  past,  or  our  hopes  on  any  mere 
visions. 

It  may  be  asked,  Do  such  views  deserve  to  be  called  a  reli- 
gion? 

They  do  and  they  do  not.  In  actual  truth  they  do,  for 
they  mean  nothing  more  or  less  than  that  we  feel  ourselves 
inseparably  bound  up  with  that  with  which  we  are,  after  all, 
inseparably  bound  up ;  that  is,  with  our  bodies  and  their  sen- 
sations. But,  after  all,  this  is  so  obvious,  or  at  any  rate  ought 
to  be  so  obvious,  as  to  need  no  special  name. 

In  Chapter  XIII  an  attempt  was  made  to  inquire  how  it 
is  that,  from  the  fact  of  our  being  quite  certainly  organized 
human  beings,  certain  necessities  have  arisen  which  we  can 
define  as  moral  requirements.  But  these  moral  requirements 
are  merely  based  on  the  fact  that  we  are,  after  all,  human, 
beings,  and  all  the  deductions  which  we  can  make  from  this 
fact  we  are  accustomed  to  sum  up  under  the  name  of  hu- 
manity. 

To  be  humane,  however,  simply  means  that  we  have  com- 
prehended the  history  of  the  evolution  of  mankind;  that  we 
know  whence  we  come;  that  we  have  an  inkling  of  whither 
we  are  going;  and  that  we  are  accordingly  trying  to  conform 
to  the  general  scheme  of  nature,   which  for  us  means  the 


552  THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

progress  of  human  evolution.  We  believe  in  this  progress 
of  evolution;  we  love  mankind,  and  we  hope  for  further 
progress ;  in  other  words,  for  that  superman  who  is  daily  and 
hourly  slowly  coming  into  being.  This  recognition  of  self- 
evident  facts  embraces  every  moral  law.  Were  we  to  express 
the  ten  commandments  in  accordance  therewith,  they  would 
read  somewhat  as  follows: — 

1. — There  is  no  morality  without  belief  in  the  superhuman. 

2. — Thou  shalt  not  try  to  believe  in  anything  of  which  thou 
knowest  that  it  has  no  real  existence.  As  nothing  super- 
human really  exists  except  the  community  of  mankind,  let  thy 
morality  be  based  on  this. 

3. — Inwardly  to  realize  that  mankind  as  a  whole  is  a  real- 
ity means  feeling  thyself  bound  up  with  this  world,  means 
having  religion,  and  means  loving  thy  neighbor. 

LOVE   AND    HONOR 

4. — The  forms  and  symbols  of  the  community  of  mankind-^ 
thy  family  and  thy  country. 

5. — Human  life  and  the  life  of  mankind. 

6. — Good  traditions,  instincts  which  still  serve  a  purpose. 

7. — ^Labor. 

8.— Truth. 

9  and  10. — Oppose  evil  traditions,  instincts  which  no  longer 
serve  a  purpose. 

How  we  formulate  our  morality,  however,  is  no  matter; 
all  that  matters  is  that  we  should  bethink  ourselves  of  our- 
selves and  understand  that  man  is  an  individual  unit  and 
at  the  same  time  a  part  of  a  superordinate  organism.  Who- 
soever knows  this,  and  realizes  it  not  merely  as  a  truth  which 
can  be  acquired,  but  as  a  living  law  in  him  and  a  feeling,  is 
a  human  being  indeed  and  in  truth.  But  whosoever  does  not 
realize  this  is  no  true  human  being,  no  matter  how  much  he 
may  outwardly  resemble  one,  or,  as  Kant  puts  it,  how  civil- 
ized he  may  be;  for  he  lacks  that  essential  thing  which  dif- 


WAR  AND  RELICTION  553 

ferentiates  man  from  all  other  living  beings — the  feeling  of 
belonging  to  the  genus  humanurti. 

Seio  et  seuto  genus  humanum  esse  simplex  et  unum, 
Seio  et  volo  me  esse  hominem, 
Scio  et  spero  uunquam  oblivisci. 

Whoever  is  a  human  being  at  all  is  also  a  moral  human 
being.  In  face  of  this  truth  no  isolated  occurrences  have  any 
importance  save  as  phenomena,  and  so  it  is  with  war.  If  hu- 
manity wins,  the  death-knell  of  war  will  have  sounded,  but 
only  then;  for  man  cannot  and  will  not  break  his  sword  in 
sunder  so  long  as  he  does  not  know  that  a  sword  has  neither 
part  nor  lot  in  the  conception  of  mankind,  but  is  merely  a 
tool  to  be  laid  aside  like  any  other. 


THE  END 


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